It's been a while. If you've been a listener of the Self-Awareness and Self-Compassion Podcast, I want to thank you for being a part of this journey.

Since December 2023, I've been in a deep season of reflection and transformation, and now, I'm back with something new: a weekly podcast called Anchored & Alive.

This new show is grounded in everything I've always believed in:

• Practical self-care
• Emotional empowerment
• Boundaries that protect your energy

And the seasonal rhythms that bring us home to ourselves

If you're craving grounded tools and honest conversations about what it means to feel deeply and live fully, come join me on Anchored & Alive.

Just search for Anchored & Alive with Blaze on your favorite podcast app, or visit www.anchoredandalive.com/podcast to listen now.

Thank you for walking this path with me. I hope to see you there.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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It's been a wonderful three years of creating and producing this podcast, but for now it's time for a break. I am so appreciative to all of you who have joined me for each episode, supported me on the journey and contributed to its success.

I figured an appropriate topic for this last episode would be looking at how we decide when we are complete with a project, and how do we choose to part ways. It can be emotional, cathartic, and exciting all at the same time. What might you be able to accomplish next with the energy you free up from the old project?

I wish for all of you to connect with your inner knowing, to be at peace with your decisions, and to move forward confidently in all that you tackle. May your 2024 be filled with delightful experiences, and may you always trust yourself to know what your next right step is. I'm cheering for you! 

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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It’s important to refuel yourself regularly if you want to have the energy and inspiration to take care of others or make a huge impact on the world around you.

It is often our most selfish hobbies and downtime that allows us to have the energy to serve others.

This week we look at the signs and symptoms of overwhelm and explore ways we can provide more kindness and tenderness to ourselves to interrupt that trajectory.

Restorative time sprinkled with praise and appreciation for ourselves creates so much hope, love, and desire to return to the outer world and give from our hearts.

May you recognize all of your accomplishments and discoveries this year and pave the way for your future endeavors with grace and ease.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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When life presents us with difficult situations, we often forget to pause and assess ourselves for all of the things we are capable of and offer. But when we do, we can bring so much more to the situation and give ourselves a lot more appreciation in the process.

Last week I listened to Matt Khan giving a Loving Kindness Meditation and this podcast explores my takeaways from that transmission. I really enjoyed it!

There are ways to address ourselves that give us a great deal of energy, love, and kindness as well as respect. There are ways we can undermine ourselves by unconsciously judging ourselves for the situations we find ourselves in and the way we may have dealt with things in the past.

So this week, we contemplate how life might change if we addressed ourselves with great love and belief, and how to make a habit of thinking of ourselves that way.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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 I now continue this work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, a podcast focused on emotional regulation, burnout recovery, and learning how to work with your energy so action becomes more natural and sustainable. You can check it out here.

When we’re stretching for a goal, we often find ourselves procrastinating and not understanding why we aren’t doing it.

We can easily self-sabotage when working toward a goal by believing that it’s not worth bothering to try because we have unreasonable expectations about timelines.

One of the lies we tell ourselves is that we can start tomorrow, and we believe that somehow tomorrow we will feel better about it or it will be easier to start than it is right now – but that’s not true. It will be just as hard tomorrow, we will have only succeeded in putting off what we could have started today.

We think something outside of ourselves will make it easier to do something, but really it is through the action of doing a thing that makes future repetitions easier.

When we know that, we can relieve ourselves of the expectation that it will feel better tomorrow or that it will be easier another time. This frees up more space to tackle the issue with the energy we have now.

It is wonderful to nurture the thought that you can do hard things and that having some stress in your life is a good thing. Especially if the stress is from something you chose to do rather than something outside of your control.

A great strategy to overcome procrastination is to allow yourself to consciously indulge in something restorative before tackling the goal – and then stick to your timeline and practice your goal for a short burst of time. This is more doable than dedicating an entire day or several hours to your project and can jumpstart your ability to begin.

Setting our sights too high to reasonably accomplish also can derail us from starting.

There is a lot of energy gained from building in praise for yourself for your efforts and rallying yourself and/or others to cheer you on and give positive feedback to you to sustain your efforts.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Sometimes we have feelings about the hobbies we choose to pursue, despite starting with all good intentions.

Part of learning any new skill is coming to terms with being terrible at it in the beginning and facing our own frustration with this each time we show up to learn more.

We can get through a lot of the initial frustration by focusing on curiosity or interest in the process of learning how to get past each obstacle.

When we are kids, we have a large amount of this kind of curiosity and interest and it allows us to learn all kinds of new things before we give up, especially about topics that we find particularly interesting.

It’s okay to be frustrated and feel like we aren’t getting anywhere. We don’t need to see success every day or even every week – progress is happening and when we are in the process we might not be able to notice our own improvements.

It can help to think of practicing new habits or hobbies as a ritual because at the beginning we don’t know what to expect. We can create some safety and predictability by creating a simple ritual that gets you started and embarked on the journey.

Accepting that the feeling we have at the beginning of learning a new skill is generally fraught with frustration as well as interest. It is what it is – and as you progress, your feelings may swing more toward accomplishment, pride, joy, and inspiration. It’s OK to not be overwhelmed with inspiration at the beginning, that’s just how it is at the beginning.

Rest and sleep are super important when learning new skills, too. Without that rest and sleep, we don’t consolidate the new information and skills – and with it, we accelerate our learning, which is amazing and so much fun!

It’s also helpful to have an idea of where you want to end up with each of your goals and come up with ways to move toward that result, with a timeline for evaluation.

It also helps to consistently ask yourself for small amounts of time to practice instead of demanding hours of your time, which is harder to commit to in general and even more so when you’re feeling frustrated or disappointed in your progress. Small chunks of time accumulate into big wins over time.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Friendships change throughout the course of our lives. As children, it seems like friendships are much easier to initiate than as adults. Friendships grow easily with shared experiences. 

When we are kids, we are put into the same environment and mutual situations as entire classrooms of peers, whereas in our adult lives, people live separate lives and have fewer shared experiences than they did when they were younger.

As our experiences diverge, creating closer relationships becomes more challenging. 

This is why creating opportunities for shared experiences has such a huge impact on our friendships and intimate relationships. We become closer the more common experiences we share. 

It’s why choosing to show up for each other is important – if we don’t make the time to be together, even if it is virtually online at the same time – we stop having anything to talk about or agree upon. We no longer have shared memories.

As adults, we are fortunate that we have had time to decide what we truly enjoy and want to spend time doing, and hopefully find others who equally appreciate the same activities we do. Once we are in charge of our lives, we are no longer at the whim of whatever after-school activity fits our parents’ schedules or going to the class we were assigned to rather than where we wish we could go.

The best relationships have withstood arguments and strife and overcome that together. The people who are there for us in our most difficult moments are the ones we have put time and love towards as well.

Prioritizing friendships leads to a whole host of benefits that even resonate into our physical health. It’s OK to inconvenience ourselves to spend time with others, because what we get back in return is so much more than the effort we put in. It’s great to enjoy our relationships with each other and bring more joy into the world. 

What would bring you a lot of delight and joy, and who could you share that with today? 

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Depending on how you work best, you might prefer a schedule that is fairly rigid and has smaller bursts of scheduled activities, or you might thrive when you clock out multiple hours for work that fits a certain theme.

When I feel like there isn’t enough time to immerse in a subject, I avoid that activity like crazy. I can find all kinds of reasons to procrastinate when I feel like I will be interrupted when I get into something.

There are other personality types that need the interruption or they won’t stop working. You know who you are. So look at your schedule and build in alarms or interruptions that help you move on to other topics and activities. And if you need longer periods of time to get started in the first place, rearrange your schedule to give yourself bigger chunks of time so you can be productive.

I find also that grouping tasks that use the same skillset and thought process helps increase productivity massively. It’s why we have assembly lines – we excel at figuring out a process and then going on with it automatically. When we switch tasks constantly, it slows us way down and gets more intense and it is easy to lose our place and get distracted.

Also, we tend to only schedule things that are chores or that we “have to” do. It’s important to schedule activities that fill us back up and give us the energy to do the “have to’s” in our lives. Restorative time is as important as productive time, so notice if your schedule is heavy in either direction and see if there’s space to balance that out.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Our bright and large emotional reactions to small things stem from earlier situations that we’re still dealing with emotionally.

It’s easy to roll with inconveniences when they are few and far between and we are otherwise happy, cared for, and well. When we are depleted emotionally and mentally, anything that impedes our progress in the day can set us off. When that happens, we resonate with our underlying unaddressed emotion. The inconvenience brings it to the surface.

We can come to a more peaceful place more easily when we offer ourselves the praise and appreciation we feel are missing elsewhere in our lives.

Getting enough kindness and positive interactions in a day than negative feedback in a ratio of 5 positive to 1 negative makes us more resilient and joyful overall.

You can also set aside 90 seconds to truly sit with whatever negative emotion arises so that you complete the cycle and it no longer has as much control over you. When we get interrupted in feeling our feelings, either by ourselves or an outside event – we get stuck and repeat the feeling until it’s over. And that can take a long time, even all day! So taking the break to move through a feeling is very much worth it, and it’s something we haven’t been taught and generally don’t even consider to be possible.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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How do you use technology? Do you feel it benefits you? This week I share my experience using fitness trackers and the ways it has both helped me and stressed me out. 

How was my life different when I could only use analog feedback like writing down my workouts and weighing myself on the scale each day? What is it like now when I have instantaneous and constant feedback for how my body is moving, resting, breathing and otherwise functioning?

In a lot of ways, over time I became increasingly dependent on the numbers the tracker gives me. But instead of using it to improve my fitness, which is where I started out – eventually, I found I was judging myself for my numbers and feeling obsessed with looking at it while not changing a whole lot about how I live my life. Now I was living the same way but feeling worse about it than if I wasn’t tracking.

I ask myself now, can I trust my own perception of my health, body, and movement? Can I trust if I slept well or feel good even if I don’t have a tracker telling me how good or bad the night was in terms of heart rate, oxygen levels, and REM sleep? 

There are benefits to tracking, and I am finding that I ought to use mine for the specific benefits that make me feel good about myself. I am letting go of the obsessive need to check the app and judge myself for how good or poorly I seem to be faring that day.

Instead, I am choosing to assess how I feel for myself before checking, and if my feeling and the tracker’s perception of the state of affairs differs, I am choosing to defer to my own feelings first and take the tracker’s input as an advisor but not an authority over me. Take that, step goal!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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What’s the emotion that’s sparked the most often by the sources of information and entertainment you consume or are exposed to?

Having a big emotion sparked makes it more difficult for you to respond to situations, it instead elicits reactions from you.

Some basic truths about what sparks emotional reactions in us can be helpful.

When we watch something visually, full of music, fast cuts back and forth and fast pacing, it primes you to be on edge and more emotional. This makes you more receptive to whatever message they are pitching you.

Reading slows us down, even though we recognize emotional words. But we do need to train ourselves to notice the frequency and flavor of the emotional words that are used so that we can recognize that the articles we are consuming aren’t neutral – they have a stance and a message.

Listening to information, we follow the cadence and emotional tone of the speaker or presenter. We are social animals and built to target in on other’s emotions and stance and either to agree or disagree.

We are in a never-ending onslaught of information these days, and it can really help to consciously choose times when we disconnect and allow for quiet and space to think and be present.

Can we consciously curate what we consume to provide us with more opportunities for uplifting emotions? This is the space where we are able to solve more problems.

Pain needs to be moved. It needs to be acknowledged and healed. But continually poking at our pain cannot give us the space or creative availability to show up as our better selves. For that to occur, we need to create a pause, provide ourselves with the circumstances that nurture us and soothe and inspire us.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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How do you value your time? Is there a threshold of excellence you strive to achieve that holds you back from enjoying hobbies?

Sometimes we compare ourselves to people who make their living doing the craft that we’ve made into our hobby. And when we do that, it can eventually stop us from showing up and having fun.

Is there value in doing an activity for its own sake? Or does it always have to produce something or contribute to others? Sometimes there is joy in keeping a project or hobby to yourself. If it helps you to enjoy it more by reserving it for only yourself and possibly a few supportive people, then by all means, keep your secrets!

We all deserve joy in life and to nourish ourselves and fuel up with something precious that inspires you and gives you life.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Researching my own ancestry opened my eyes to some patterns that seemed to emerge several times that surprised me. I feel like I have a deeper understanding of how money moves and flows through generations, the frequency with which people travel, and the general trials and tribulations of wars, diseases, and famines that strike all over the world and throughout all families’ histories.

I was able to see how names and ideas about people get rewritten by those who write them – how often a name was changed each time it was noted, how people were erased or renationalized or forced into different religions over and over again throughout time.

Knowing my family’s personal history makes me feel a bit more grounded in time today. I feel like I have an appreciation for history that I haven’t had before – but my interest is smaller in a way. My focus on events that my ancestors were directly involved in feels more meaningful than reading about events that happened continents away and centuries ago where nobody in my family ever walked or breathed. I can feel the influence of my ancestors now – maybe that’s just imagined, but it feels somehow like home, and history, and ambition, and maybe even peace.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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This time of year is about a quieter execution of goals. The exuberance of the Spring and Summer have come to an end, and while that brings with it a sense of loss and listlessness – there is something wonderful about flowing into a slower pace of being.

There is a rhythm to life, and right now it wants to slow down and allow inertia to complete your projects and to accomplish things for you. What if it is okay to pull your foot off of the acceleration pedal and allow yourself to roll towards your goals rather than racing to a finish line? What if you focus for now on nourishment and restoration?

Passing through seasons of accomplishment and recuperation allows you to flow with more ease, accept the inevitable stops and slow-downs that occur along the way, and take advantage of the times when you have a ton of energy and ability to work hard. What a relief to know that you don’t have to work hard or push to the height of your abilities all the time!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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What is reasonable to accomplish in only three months or 13 weeks? As the end of the year approaches and panic sets in that we haven’t gotten everything done off of our lists of goals for the year, the kindest thing we can do is look back at what we DID accomplish. 

Believing that there is some way to do everything on your list in such a short amount of time when it already proved rather difficult if not impossible over the last 9 months is damaging and painful. But we can reframe and reassess where we are at and where we want to go, and choose meaningful small actions that further us along without adding more stress to already stressful situations.

What is the pace or emotional flavor of the future you want to experience? If you took away the concerns or thoughts you have about what you need to do to have that, what would it be? And could you choose to experience more of that starting right now?

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Technology is always changing and disrupting industries. But the shift into using artificial intelligence on the scale that is being offered today seems deeper than any other shift that came before. Perhaps that is because this is the moment I am living through. 

I’m concerned that the source material will continue to feed on itself and the less we can screen or trust the sources of our information and creations. There’s a massive lack of quality control or regulation here. And morally I feel like it is devoid, and at the same time I recognize that this is already happening and being used and there’s not much I personally can do to change that.

The positive that comes from acknowledging my personal gut reaction to AI is that I want to create more in-person, tactile and interactive experiences in my physical day-to-day life. This slows me down and reminds me to bring my friends and family closer into my day-to-day life. 

It makes me motivated to put safeguards in place not only for the way I interact with technology now but also to advocate for regulations that could allow me to trust the sources of news and gossip that continually seem to devolve and divide us.

Be aware of how much you are being sold something with every article and piece of entertainment you consume. It’s through awareness that we can make the choice to turn away from consumption and towards contentment and presence in our own lives. I want to be present and the star of my own life, not an incidental character in someone else’s larger-than-life movie.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Asking how you want to experience events in your life is a calming question that allows you to show up the way you want to rather than the way you might if you are reacting automatically.

The more present we can be in the moment, the more options are available to us emotionally and creatively. Our actions when taken from a place of presence are more effective and have a more positive impact when we can take small, mindful steps in our interactions.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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I tend to discount small actions as if I only get a little done it’s not enough. But, I don’t need to get everything done all at once, and what I’m capable of doing and showing up for is enough. Each day will be different, and it’s OK that sometimes you get lots done, and sometimes just waking up and getting through the day is all we can do. 

The smallest action makes a huge difference in our trajectory. And yet we seem to believe that we must always make huge leaps and strides towards our goals. The reality is that we arrive as a result of many steps and convergent circumstances. What if our purpose is not in the accomplishment but in the enjoyment of the process of becoming?

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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What can we do when our mood has tanked and we’re in a loop of doom? This week’s podcast talks about depression, negative thoughts, and anxiety and recognizing the flow of emotion and thoughts so that we can head ourselves toward calmer waters.

We all experience low points. Returning to a place of empowerment asks us to consider what we’ve been holding on to, and if there might be something more helpful to guide us out of our funk. 

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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A chronic symptom of the culture we are in is that we want to consume more, do more, and be more all the time. Our expectation is that self-growth is the most positive thing in the world for us, but in the pursuit of having everything already done to perfection, we wear ourselves out and feel awful.

We should always ask of any thought or belief that we have, is this true? And is this thought or belief serving me well?

It’s so easy to mindlessly pursue more, and it makes me personally feel tired, disappointed, and ragged. Self-criticism like that doesn’t serve us at all.

This week's episode will help you slow down and feel better about the natural pace that serves you best.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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This week’s episode explores how I inadvertently self-sabotaged myself while pursuing my sewing goals and how I got back on track.

Sometimes despite our best intentions, we overwhelm ourselves and not only tank our progress on the new thing but sap our energy everywhere else, too!

Listen to today's podcast if you need inspiration on uncomplicating your projects, clearing your space, and tapping back into your passion again.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Where do you look for confirmation that you’re on the right track in life? We sometimes wait for the feedback we get from the world to be positive to keep moving forward on a project, and we find negative feedback stops us or makes us question everything. 

When we try to do new things or are in the process of growing, the feedback we get from our own bodies is generally scary, uncomfortable, and unsure. But that doesn’t mean that we are on the wrong path.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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What is it about a company’s values that attract the right customers? This week I’m sharing a moment of recognition I had when a mentor shared his story of how he eventually became the center of his brand. When hiring, others ought to supplement your values and help you bring your vision to life, but not fundamentally alter the vision and values that you had at the outset.

Determining the core values of a business is deeply related to the core values of the person building the business. We need to get clear on our values so that we can embody and communicate those ideas and values all the way down through the company’s layers and attract the best employees and customers possible.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Mental and physical exertion both take a lot of energy, but we often forget how much learning costs our energy reserves.

Back in 2008, I went to the first Illustration Master Class for a week in June, and it upleveled my artwork forever.

Being in that environment was inspiring and kept my brain working hard not only during that week but for the following two weeks, too. I would close my eyes and still be processing ideas and practicing new techniques in my mind. My dreams were filled with these processes, and all of that made me ravenous!

Mental exertion takes a lot of physical effort in our brains, but until I experienced that week, this reality hadn’t even occurred to me. Creating new neural connections takes an enormous amount of energy.

One way to take advantage of all the hard work your mind does when learning a new skill is to surround yourself with others who are equally excited about the topic you’re learning about. 

There is something energetically strong about immersing yourself in an environment with others who possess the attitude and skill you desire, and who are able to see you and hold you as one of them. This helps you recreate your identity more quickly because you have that image reflected back to you by a community of others who have gone on the journey with you. It’s also super motivating.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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It’s good to take down some notes on where you are now before you start any kind of self-improvement journey. This year I want to maximize my health so I decided it would be a good idea to get some kind of a record in place to set a baseline of my current health and fitness. 

This way I can check back in over the years and find out if I’ve managed to maintain my bone density, where my fat distribution moves over the years, and lets me know where I am doing well and where I have room for adjustment.

I chose to get a DEXA scan to record this information, and it was an interesting experience. It didn’t take very long, only about ten minutes. Some of that was just strapping my legs together and making sure my arms were next to my body while I laid on the scanning bed.

You can schedule a DEXA scan without a doctor’s recommendation now, but there aren’t a lot of places that provide this service outside of an insurance system. I had to drive an hour away, but I consider the knowledge worth the effort to acquire.

Remember that making progress checks with yourself is important because our mind tends not to notice our gains and only focuses on the next goal post – and we often move our goal posts over time as our gains become a new normal.

By checking in and noticing all the positive changes, you can keep your negative self-talk in check and celebrate how far you’ve come.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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How do you use your body and mind? Do you think about them as two separate parts of you? Do you appreciate one half more than the other?

Recovering from the wildfire smoke has revitalized my commitment to caring for my body. I’ve added in some new self-care and movement routines that disrupted my usual patterns in interesting ways.

I recently heard a quote that said that it’s hard to change your habits and make them stick when shifting your body image if you only use your body to move your head from place to place. That really opened my mind and had me questioning how I use my body and if I’ve forgotten how to engage with it for joy and pleasure and not just as a transportation device.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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What does it mean to have your independence as an individual? What do you personally believe that freedom means to you and for you?

I notice the difference in what one perceives as freedom vs the intention of the enforcer of rules or boundaries the most when I observe my daughter. Often when my intention is to set her up for the most freedom and ability to negotiate a happy and prosperous future, she feels in the moment that I am mean and controlling her whole life.

It made me wonder how often our perception in the moment is lacking wider perspective. It also reminds me that the constraints I deal with make it easier for me to make decisions most of the time even if only through limiting my options.

I also observe that we feel the most free when we have control over how we move through our days. If we can decide what order we’ll tackle our chores, we feel better than simply being forced to do them, whether they were going to happen anyway or not.

Giving ourselves a framework that keeps us on track towards our own goals with enough space to make mistakes and adjust is the goal.

Without guidelines we get overwhelmed and everything seems like too much. We get lost and can’t make decisions because there is too much possibility.

And when there are too few options for personalization and choice, we get cranky and feel trapped, and this is also undesirable.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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It’s important to remember that when we found a business, we are the captain, and the business thrives best when we build the business around our values and vision.

While hiring people can certainly expand our creation and their priorities and values can contribute to the success of the endeavor – ultimately, we need to steer the ship and attract the right connections, clients, and employees.

The values that have been with me through all my business endeavors are Transformation, Curiosity, Empathy, and Community.

When we become aware of the way we operate in the world, the values that motivate us and spark our passion, and give them a place to express and thrive, we feel better. Our lives feel full of meaning.

 When we are able to communicate our goals and values clearly, we draw to us the right support, experiences, and opportunities to grow.

When we look to others to inform us of how our vision should unfold, it can feel like the right thing to do. We definitely want outside eyes and perspectives to help us understand the world and inform how we approach obstacles and opportunities.

But, if we take those insights and mistakenly believe that someone else’s vision and values are the guiding principles of our own actions, we undermine the spark that gives our businesses or brands life in the first place.

We need to remember what lights us up, the vision we have for how we relate to the world, and the message our particular brand or product brings to our customers.

Ultimately, a business needs its founder to be the voice of the endeavor, and the guiding hand to its development. By embracing this reality we afford our employees and customers MORE opportunities to appreciate our unique voice and perspective, not less. 

A muddled vision is no vision at all, and it is hard to gain momentum or rally anyone around a cause when there are too many.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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There are events that happen only once a year, or only in a certain season. And if you’re like me, you don’t want to miss out on all of the opportunities that the season provides.

But, there is only ever so much energy available to us to put into all these activities.

We need to be mindful of how much effort we are putting out so that we don’t find ourselves in complete collapse, ill, or in the worst mood during our best time of the year.

It’s Ok to follow our inner wise woman who knows that we burn out after 5 hours of loud parties, and plan accordingly. And it’s OK and even necessary to make space for recovery and better yet, prevention – when it comes to loud noises and overstimulation.

Preplanning and recognizing who we are as individuals allow us to participate in the way that feels best for who we actually are and not who we wish we were. Then we get to have way more fun!

What are the memories we want to build, and what opportunities are available to us that we can take advantage of?

What are the sacrifices we are willing to make in order to participate?

How will we make space for our comfort and enjoyment, as well as recovery and recuperation after expending lots of energy?

It’s great to ask yourself frequently in these busy moments, “What do I need now?”

Make space for yourself in your plans, and plan for yourself to be in all your activities in the way that you enjoy.

Let’s all make awesome memories this season!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Today I want to share an adventure I’m taking with my family to an organization that I absolutely adore. Wildlife diversity and wolves in particular have a big place in my heart.

From the time I was a little girl, I wanted to study wolves and contribute to wildlife conservation.

As I grew up I realized that working with animals in person probably wasn’t going to be viable because I am allergic to almost everything in nature – but being able to support conservation and education in this way is magical.

We’re going on an overnight sleepover where we get to cap off a night of movies, presentations, and observing wolves by camping out in tents just meters from the enclosures. You fall asleep to wolf howls and owl hoots, then wake up to howling, too. It’s incredible!

Getting to know animals, especially wild animals, as individuals makes it so much easier for us to want to protect them and make space for them in the world. 

The mission of the Wolf Conservation Center of NY is one of preservation and reintroduction. And they haven’t missed that people need to make connections with animals and feel their importance personally in order to support the cause.

I highly recommend supporting any organization that speaks to your heart. And if you also love wolves and believe that predators have a place in our country and in the web of life, check out the WCC and maybe symbolically adopt a wolf.

You can visit them at nywolf.org

I would love to see wolves reclaim their place in wild spaces all over the country in my lifetime. And together, we can make that more possible.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Allergy season caught me out this year, and I have had to make peace with a reality that I really didn’t want to be true. This week’s podcast is about accommodating our reality even when we deeply prefer not to experience what’s happening.

Having asthma and needing to deal with it made me aware that sometimes I choose to ignore clear negative symptoms and ongoing setbacks because I stubbornly had in my head that I shouldn’t have this problem.

I figured I’d overcome it in the past and now I liked to think of myself as an allergy-free person or an asthma-free person.

It sounds ridiculous, but honestly, I really had a mental block that was getting in the way of seeking help that was readily available and effective. 

Many of us have mental and emotional blocks like this, and they prevent us from taking helpful action on our own behalf.

Sometimes, we need to mourn for ourselves that we aren’t perfect, and allow that even if we’ve made huge strides forward already, that doesn’t guarantee that negative experiences or situations won’t arise again.

Only when we can see plainly what is currently happening and stop telling ourselves the story of why it shouldn’t be happening are we able to move forward taking effective action.

In my case, I needed to suck it up and get back on medication I didn’t really want to be taking, but that absolutely has increased the quality of my daily life.

A great question we can ask ourselves is, “How can I still create the quality of experience I want to have?”

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Whenever we say yes to too many things, we have to rearrange our energy to accommodate the activities we’ve taken on board. Somewhere, something has to be sacrificed – and we have feelings about that.

Taking care of ourselves means having reasonable expectations about what is possible at any given time, and realizing that not everything is going to go according to plan or be perfect.

Even though we want to do it all, and we believe that it is all possible, the reality is that we can’t have it all at the same time.

Prioritizing where we will put our attention and focus, and making space for energy-building restoration is essential. No, you won’t get to do everything and feel amazing about every single thing.

That’s not generally how energy and feelings work. But you will be able to show up and do what matters most to you, and when you have chosen that consciously, you can relax and allow yourself the downtime to show up well for the next big activity or commitment.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Mothering and nurturing is showing up for another person no matter what, whether you have a lot to give or not. What does this concept look like when we apply it not only to child raising, but also to ourselves, our goals and our dreams?

When we are at our worst, feeling the least motivated and the moodiest, it is when we need the most nurturing, love and appreciation. Only through giving ourselves a chance to recuperate from stress and expending energy will we accumulate enough energy to keep going and do all the things we want with our life.

Taking care of ourselves is about choosing what thing we use our energy on in each moment. When we run out of energy to keep going, that is when we need to replenish - not just to keep going doing annoying things we didn’t want to do anyway – but so that we reach a point where we feel nice, we feel full and capable of desiring action again. If you’re constantly resistant to doing anything, then you’re burnt out and need a restorative pause that lasts longer than you're comfortable with more than ever!

Giving yourself what you need, and even if what you need is to stop entirely and do nothing for a few days, the returns on that are so much more than you anticipate. 

Your life is like a garden that needs tending. Energy doesn’t come from nowhere. You have to take some back in order to give some.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Whenever anyone tells us something to do, we have pushback against that idea to see if they really mean it, and also to reinforce what we’re doing instead of changing. It happens even when we ask ourselves to do something different. 

Instead of telling ourselves to do something, we should let ourselves opt in. We change much easier when we are able to believe we are choosing to do an action rather than forced to do an action or reluctantly complying with a protocol.

Is there something that I have been putting off, that I could help myself to do by imagining how nice it will be to have the result of it being done? Getting that feeling of having the result makes you naturally more motivated and ready to take action.

Once you agree that your desired action is a great idea, it makes it harder to not do it.

Getting over the hump of not wanting to spend your day doing something you don’t think you’ll enjoy can be helped by noticing if there’s something you’re currently doing that isn’t bringing you a lot of joy or accomplishment, and asking if you could use that time to try the new thing. If you want to stop playing on your phone, for instance, and want to get your laundry done – you can use the impulse to play on your phone as the reminder to pick up the laundry basket and just put the laundry in already! This way it’s harder to argue with yourself about getting started, and you’ll likely still have time for your phone later anyway. 😊

You can also overcome some resistance by recognizing how much energy you spend on thinking about the action you haven’t taken yet, and really feel in your bones how much easier it would feel to have just done the action already and not still have to do it.

Action in a lot of ways can be an energy saver for you, but you just never thought of it that way!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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When our goal is too broad or vague, it’s too difficult for our brains to get on board and make it happen. Our bodies don’t know what we want them to do. Making decisions that could get us closer to the goal becomes super difficult because we have no real sense of what succeeding at the goal looks like.

The first challenge is recognizing why you haven’t already changed.

The next challenge is figuring out how you can maintain whatever rewards you are currently getting from staying the same and converting it into a new action or way of being that gets you closer to your goal.

You can use your imagination to wonder about who you would be if you already had the thing you want to have, or already succeeded in completing the goal. Then, you notice the difference between how that future version of yourself does things and how you currently do them.

It’s so important to be specific about what you should be doing instead of what you already do. It isn’t even an option to change what you do until you know what the new action is.

You should also look out for the thoughts and motivations that you think you will feel when you change or are taking a different action. Most of the time, we don’t feel great about a new action while we are in the day-to-day grind. The rewarding feelings come way later, in hindsight and reflection. Or at least that is the case for me!

When making your roadmap, half of the battle is confronting our thoughts and feelings and knowing that it’s OK to have thoughts and feelings and choose consciously which way to go with our decisions. 

Knowing what it’s like to make a different choice makes choosing that choice way easier. You know what you are going to object to and what it will sound like or feel like, and you will set up in advance a way to make it easier for you to make the choice you’d prefer.

Try to make your steps small and simple, easy to track, and not too demanding of your energy or willpower. If you accumulate many small nearly effortless steps, you will get to your destination SO MUCH FASTER and more permanently than you will otherwise.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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As an adult, I need to remind myself that I am getting better at things and improving in my life, but as a kid, we believe in ourselves as a matter of course.

We need to let go of perfection and embrace ourselves as being on a journey in order to receive the delight of believing we are getting better in every way every day. If we believe we are done, or that we’ve already figured out how to be and that we’re great at it, it doesn’t leave room for us to try, make mistakes, and improve.

We gain a lot from getting positive feedback for our actions, but as we get older, we lose a lot of that positive chorus. We can provide it for ourselves, though, and I believe that showering ourselves with praise for what we’ve done well provides a huge amount of motivation and reward. 

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Ever notice how freakin’ busy life gets this time of year? As the sun is up more often I have a lot more desire to be out and about and do things I want to do. And, so does the rest of my family and the rest of the world, and sometimes their schedules and needs get in the way of my own.

This episode is about dealing with the frustration of conflicting needs, schedules, and desires when we feel limited by time.

We talk about clarifying expectations, discovering where you have conflicting purposes with others and with yourself, and how to release the tension that arises when trying to please everyone at your own expense.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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How can you raise your expectations for what is possible in your life? This week I come at the subject from a different angle and ask you, what are you tolerating in your life?

Where are the places where you can raise the bar on what you allow to keep happening in your life and expect things to go better?

I share my journey of wanting to become someone who isn’t attached to my phone and the process of separating from it consciously.

Where are you allowing yourself to keep doing the old thing you’re ready to give up? What benefit is this old action giving you? Is there a better thing you could replace that activity with that gives you the same benefit?

Without being deliberate about what we want to experience and what we no longer want to do, it is so easy to be a bit of a zombie and do the same thing you always have. 

As always, adding in something you would prefer to do is often easier to get a change rolling than going straight for cutting things out of your day.

We also need to consider where we write off the possibility of change for us because we don’t think a small change is big enough. But small changes add up!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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In life we tend to lean towards the side of action – but there is a necessity for rest and quiet and stillness. When we are faced with moments of rest, a break, or vacations, we find it difficult to dwell in the quiet.

This episode explores what to expect when we take a break and attempt to recuperate from burnout and hard work. It turns out, this is a difficult experience for most of us! And that’s OK. You will survive, and it is still worth doing, even if we fill up our time as quickly as possible so that we are still doing things even when we are supposed to be having a break.

There are ways we can shake things up and reset our routines quickly.

If you are feeling stressed out about the change in routine and afraid of what might not be happening or what is happening while you are away – is it possible to fill your time with experiences and activities that let you wonder?

Wonderment and curiosity, especially for discovering new experiences you enjoy – are an excellent path towards refilling your cup. 

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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This year I am working on upgrading my expectations of myself and what is possible for me, and it’s something I want for everyone in the world. It takes some deeper awareness of where I have beliefs that cause me to struggle, and some deeper kindness towards myself to overcome these limitations.

Learn how to recognize the patterns and feelings that lurk below your awareness and help them get on board with a higher level of positive experiences in this talk about upgrading your belief in yourself and what is possible.

From using sticky notes to make a record of your signs of success, to noticing your cringe-worthy feelings and deciding to love them instead of believe them – you’ll leave this episode with some practical how-tos, and some great questions to ask yourself as you level up every area of your life.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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There is a tipping point that we rarely notice – and it’s when we have put in so much good effort, love, and energy, that those vibes have an automatic return and snowball.

When we zoom out and give our lives an honest assessment and look for where we have improved, we have a chance to see this law of exponential returns. What we are currently receiving and experiencing is a valid and honest reflection of what we put out and the level that we’ve been playing at up until now.

What’s so cool about this is that we can choose to amplify our vibes consciously.

We can choose to put out more kindness, more wonder, and more patience, and we inevitably will reach a tipping point where the world begins to serve us lots of kindness, wonder, and patience.

We can choose to create more value wherever we are and expect to see positive returns on that because it’s a law of the universe. We don’t even have to force anything to happen – it just will!

No matter what you work on, at some point you will see a leap forward where things just suddenly are easier. It’s easy to miss them when they come, but celebrating these tiny wins is what keeps us going. So don’t forget to celebrate the small stuff!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Being masterful with our time doesn’t happen without planning and deliberate actions. We must plan for what we want to happen, and we have to make space for what we want to happen.

We think about the actions we need to take and the resources, but we fail to consider the space we need to allow our dreams to grow, to become real, and to become our truth.

Getting to know what’s truly important to you and connecting with your values is central to not only manifesting your dreams but creating a life experience that you enjoy.

We must decide which of our many ideas is the most important. We all have a difficult time deciding! But if we stick with one idea long enough, spend some time with it, ask it what it needs, and then give it the space and resources it needs to grow – it can bloom!

To truly live a life where you’ve mastered your time, you need to start with creating space. You have to deliberately create blocks of time that are open, so that you can let your ideas grow into them. You need space to catch up on the backlog of crap that was forgotten last week, space to fill back up your tank with creative action, space to connect with loved ones and to get inspired. And you need space to have the option to follow through and act on your next great idea.

Without leaving space for all of this, none of it can happen. So it’s one of those paradoxes that in order to get a lot done, you need to leave space – emptiness – for it to manifest.

Being masterful with your time means being deliberate about what you make time for. It means being ruthless with what you release yourself from. It takes courage. And it is so worth it!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Right around this time of year, we start to feel the hustling energy, and we can begin to take advantage of the momentum of people doing stuff around us to start putting our own projects into action and manifestation.

It’s a good time to assess how you’ve spent the winter – did you spend it accumulating thoughts and feelings that serve you well, or did you knock yourself down? When you get a sense of what’s worked well and what isn’t working for you, then you can consciously choose to move toward more positive ideas, people, places, and habits.

Part of unjamming your life is looking at the tendencies you have – what behaviors keep playing out – and what would they need to be instead if you wanted a different outcome than what you have today?

The first step to any breakthrough is awareness of what’s already happening, paired with the motivation and knowledge of what to do next.

When there’s a thing you want to be, you need to set yourself to believe that you are – even if you currently only are capable of a very small portion of what you one day will be able to do.

Starting where you are and keeping your demands of yourself small enough to be in alignment with what you can do and want to choose to do now is important and will allow you to gradually increase your belief and desire to keep going for more.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Connection and community are so important to our well-being and ability to thrive.

Even though there are times when I desire to be a hermit and only drink tea, read books, and have a cat on my lap – this need for quiet is balanced by a need to get feedback and love from others, and I can’t do that on my own.

Recognizing my need for community, this year I decided to actively foster one instead of waiting for it to come to me.  And it feels excellent to take the reins and decide what kinds of gatherings I want to experience, and who I’d love to have be there.

The simple act of choosing to participate actively has created a sense of agency, responsibility, and pride that wasn’t there before. Now my social life isn’t happening to me, but for me and because of me. I feel a greater sense of belonging, and that is lovely to experience.

Even as I set up opportunities for gatherings, I have to remind myself that the point is to spend time with people I care about, not to create a perfect day. 

Sometimes our desire for perfection can get in the way of all the fun, but if we notice the perfection monster arising, we can gently set it down and decide to just be present, available to enjoy the people we care about, and spend some time doing activities we love.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Thanks to Iskra, my very first paid subscription podcast supporter! I appreciate you and am so happy you’re here.

This week we explore why we do and don’t do things. Do we move toward accomplishment, or away from punishment, disappointment or discomfort?

How can we approach our ambitions in a way that honors these two warring desires within us?

We explore the ways our beliefs about the world can get in the way of moving toward our dreams, and create more space for us to receive good things in the world.

When we notice the moment that we put on the brakes and limit how much we are willing to commit to an outcome, or how hard we want to push for that outcome, it illuminates where our most limiting beliefs are and gives us the opportunity to deconstruct them.

Humans tend to approach the same point of failure repeatedly, become confused as to why things aren’t working, and find themselves too tired to figure it out. It leads to us returning to the same projects and big ambitions using the same actions and finding ourselves stuck at the same place on repeat, which leads to despair and frustration.

Surrounding ourselves with people who have achieved or are achieving the same goals as us is so helpful in overcoming our confusion, fears, and setbacks.

We can also tap into the innate wisdom of our body to learn why we stop ourselves from moving forward, and discover the best times for us to push ahead.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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The end of January is a time of seeking comfort and coziness and resisting work and effort. Or at least that’s how it is for me!

It feels like a great time to get cozy, enjoy hot beverages, sleep as much as possible, and avoid working hard. Despite a belief that I ought to be productive all the time and always push forward in my business and my life in general, my body and mind are begging me for quiet and respite.

There is a natural cycle in life that flows from creativity, production, and great activity, assessment and gathering, and finally rest and recuperation. It’s OK to embrace the resting season fully.

It is also true that there are times when it is legitimately more difficult to coordinate efforts and do activities. When life is more unpredictable it naturally encourages us to step back and focus more inward. Snow and ice have a natural ability to slow us down and force us to slow down.

When we get upset, it highlights an area where we feel we aren’t getting what we need. Our cranky side has a lot of wisdom for us if we listen to its underlying message. When we give ourselves what we need, we more easily move into a flow where we have more to offer. This is why it is so important to allow ourselves periods of rest and nourishment, as well as periods of activity, accomplishments, and providing for others.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Let’s talk about pride, doing what feels true to your soul, and putting boundaries into place to help you live with the highest personal integrity.

When we are young, it’s so easy to declare how awesome we are and how well we did something. And as we get older, it becomes harder to praise ourselves for our accomplishments or the way we handle situations. I believe there is something nourishing to be found in acknowledging how well we try, and how well we rise to the occasions of our lives.

When we act in our lives in a way that honors our deeply held values, we are acting with integrity. When it starts to unravel is when we make concessions with our values in order to placate others or honor other people’s values.

In this episode, I share my struggles with standing up for myself, battling mean thoughts about those who I feel have done me wrong, and how I’m stepping into greater alignment with the me I want to be, who is less judgmental, and more willing to receive a resolution when in conflict.

It’s not perfect, but through examining my thought and emotional process as I go through conflict, I find myself more connected to my personal integrity, and more willing to relax and receive the results of my actions and efforts.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Thriving doesn’t mean only feeling happy and awesome all the time. To truly thrive, we need to connect with our values, understand what we care about the most, and show up with integrity to face our lives and the situations in our lives in alignment with those values.

We can thrive in our lives even when things suck. A sense of pride and accomplishment arises when we feel we’ve handled our circumstances well, especially under adversity. Thriving is accepting all of things that come with being ourselves and showing up as well as we can.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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The winter season calls us to slow down and relax, to recuperate from the hard work of the previous year, and to dream for a while before the activity of the Spring. Yet most of us are panicky in this season worrying over what we haven’t yet accomplished and comparing ourselves to a standard that is unobtainable.

It is a good time to listen to your body, allow yourself a break, recalibrate and recenter yourself and give yourself all the nurturing, love, and kindness you crave. You will become capable of so much more from that space of being nurtured! And that, too, will manifest in its season.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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I love the actual physical act of dreaming, but I also am a fan of consciously dreaming up new ideas and new thoughts about how I might be if I tried out something new.

By thinking about how I might feel or act if I already had what I think I want now, it lets me understand if there’s a deeper need underneath my desires, or if I already have a lot of what I want.

Conscious dreaming also lets me figure out how to amplify the feelings I want to have more of and attract more of that into my daily experience. It doesn’t happen haphazardly, it happens with conscious effort and making myself aware of opportunities and thoughts as they arise.

Daydreaming always felt so much more important than adults told me when I was a kid, and now I think many adults like me resonate with vision-boarding our ideas to make them a reality. It’s what our species is built to do – we LOVE to dream!

And it turns out, dreaming serves a big purpose, to help us come up with the ways we will achieve our goals, merge with the feelings we want to create more of, and have fun along the way.

What are you dreaming about this year? I hope it is fun! Be easy with yourself as you take the small steps towards making it a reality - slower is faster!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Inspiration to me means something that is exciting and possible and makes me feel motivated to do my best and attempt to create an experience in my life, even if I haven’t had success in that area before.

One of the most inspiring things for me is hearing someone sing a song that speaks to a universal emotion – the big ones like sorrow and grief, or love, or wonder. I cry when I see someone sharing something beautiful like that because it resonates so deeply with what I hold to be important and true.

I believe we all find inspiration from the things that most resonate with our values and best desires for our lives.

When we witness an event or the success of another that aligns with what we hold important and dear to our soul, it allows us to dream even larger, to inhale deeply, and to add that experience to the language of our hearts.

In times of slowing down, when we can consume books, binge Netflix series, and listen to the podcasts we cherish, I believe it is a time of building up our ideas and forming our next steps for how we want to show up in the world.

It’s why I think it’s important that we choose what we consume carefully so that we constructively lead ourselves towards inspirations and ideas that help us live a happier and more joyful life.

If you find yourself taking in too much darkness, it can end up derailing your efforts and keep you stuck.

May you find the beauty in whatever it is you are experiencing, and connect with creations that inspire you to live your happiest and best version of yourself.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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In the winter colder months, most of us want more pampering, to feel that we belong, and to have the time and space to rest. I am a hibernating type of animal, and I very much want peace and respite at this time of year. After weeks of celebrating and connecting with my friends and family – another key desire of mine! – I partake in a large amount of quietude. Tea, a cat on my lap, and a good book is all I really want.

Nature calls us to retreat when it is colder and food is less scarce, and humanity often doesn’t want to align with that demand. But when we do, there is a great nourishment that seeps into our hearts.

Humans complicate desire and want to quantify everything – to judge what’s best, to judge how well we are measuring up against what we believe everyone else is doing and experiencing and having. We can’t quite believe that life could really be as simple as relaxing and enjoying the moment. We have been taught to fear that if we take a break we’ll be judged, or that the world will suddenly stop working so we prod ourselves on endlessly.

I’d suggest that we are allowed and called to release ourselves from all the desires for MORE at this time of year, and to indulge the desires for rest, recuperation and dreaming. It’s a great time of year for dreaming and planning, and not necessarily a time for tackling huge and arduous goals. Let that be for the Spring!

For now, rest, my friends, and indulge your deep human desires for comfort, love, and connection. A time and season for every purpose, yes?

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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We are more than the sum of our successes and failures in 2022.

What a relief to look at a new year and wonder how I can enjoy being myself even more than I have before! Being myself by making choices that feel the best to me leads to moments of connection that I want to savor going forward.

I had a conversation with a wild crow this past week, and it delighted me that I could forge the opportunity for that kind of interaction by simply being me and doing what I do with regularity.

May this year have a lot of joy and contentment for you as you release into the moment and allow yourself to receive what is yours to have. I want to think that in many regards, life can be simpler like this, if not always easy.

May you become an excellent receiver of the gifts that are given to you!

Rather than resolving for anything – what will you allow to happen and manifest? I’d love to know!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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I find that identifying where I am seasonally in the arc of a year really helps me to feel more present and focus on the activities and thoughts that are the most effective for that time.

The end of the autumn and beginning of the winter is a season of dreaming, planning, and getting myself inspired for the coming year. It's a time of slowing down the frantic harvesting and production of the fall, and to allow myself time to really consider how I want to create my next leaps forward next year.

Personally, I want the coming year to be about embracing contentment - to feel that I am enough in all that I do, whether it's in my business, my health journey, or my relationships. And I also want to balance that with curiosity for how much I can accomplish while staying in that belief. Not over-working, not proving to myself anything - but embracing a peace that feels comfortable and sustainable as I continue to strive towards my goals and complete them.

Who's with me?

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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I've learned a lot about myself by deciding to face my fears through exposure to them. One of my fears was snakes, but after I adopted one I have found that I have a totally new understanding of them, or at least the individual snake, Timmy, that has become a part of my family.

Snakes teach me to slow down, to think more slowly, deliberately, and calmly about what I am trying to say or do. And, they have revealed to me that my dreams can sometimes be more meaningful and insightful than I knew they could be!

Slowing down and being more deliberate might be something I like to embody, but it takes awareness for me to implement it more often. Most of the time I seem to default to a more sporadic and chaotic expression of activity. For me, being around a snake on a daily basis reminds me to chill out, recognize that things don't need constant effort to turn out well, and that a few moments of well-placed effort can result in huge gains.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Sometimes it's good to reconnect with an activity you've lost touch with. For me, it's felting and crafting. I haven't had a lot of creative time with the arts in the last two years, and have spent most of that energy on my business and being a mom. But giving myself a chance to dabble with my felt and needles brings a little spice to my life and some delight, too. And, it offered a new way to connect with my daughter, who it turns out also loves to sculpt little creatures!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Did you notice that the name of the podcast changed from Full Spectrum Feeling to the Self-Awareness & Self-Compassion Podcast today? I'm super excited to usher in this new change for the podcast and get to the heart of my message.

I also want to share that sometimes it's easy to get in our heads about how hard a change might be to implement - all the ways it could be hard, or go wrong, or be misperceived. But we have control over how we think about this, and it translates into how we feel and the actions we're willing to take.

I am thrilled to say I have a plan for the 2023 season of the podcast and it's going to be so much fun! So thank you for sticking with me through the last two years and get ready for an amazing and more heartfelt deeper dive in the coming year. I appreciate you!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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This time of year is my annual reset. I like to review the year and discover everything I am grateful for, how it all connects to my values, and decide where I'd like to go in the coming year.

Each year I choose a theme of the concept I am learning to embody more of in my life. Two years ago I chose to learn how to become a great receiver and understand more about allowing vs. forcing or manipulating events, and last year I chose belonging and to find where I serve the best in my life and community.

This coming year I suspect I will be exploring what it means to be content in my belonging, content in what I have and do, and content that I am enough. There is a sense of wanting to deepen my relationship with the present moment and stop continually ruminating on the past or slogging forward without appreciating the gorgeousness of now.

These kinds of New Year goals feel quite rich and full of possibility and guide me in how I make choices, how I reflect on events, and contribute to a sense of peace for me. 

I hope you have some lovely year-review rituals, too! And if you don't yet have one, perhaps consider choosing a theme to settle into on your next turn around the sun. The experience is quite enlightening!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Black Friday has me feeling all the feels. I end up stressed about the sheer amount of sales emails in my inbox from every store I've ever visited once, and even though I know they are pushing me to buy, I still can end up feeling worried that I might miss out on a great deal if I don't take them up on their offers.

But, I also had one company try something different that really resonated with me, which was the concept of a giveaway. It's amazing how much that shift in the spirit of the offer changed how I felt - not only about their offer and product, but about how I prefer to do business.

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This episode gives you a glimpse into how I put together keynote speeches and practice for my live workshops. I really enjoyed how this one turned out and I am sharing it with you this week!

The talk is about how we can become more aware of how our expectations and thoughts contribute to our feelings, how our feelings create sensations in our bodies, and how we can use that awareness to create more compassion for ourselves as we stretch towards our goals and dreams.

I had a great time putting this one together and I hope you enjoy it!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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When things unravel and we feel sad, ashamed or disappointed, it’s time for more sympathy and compassion for ourselves and not less.

In this episode I explore different angles of approach to release the pain of disappointment and release our inner turmoil.

From the thoughts we can redirect to the way we can use our body to flow through emotions so that we aren’t caught up in a story about why we’re suffering, I cover it here. 

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What does it take to show up as a person worthy of respect and to respect others as well? Is it something we have to work hard to earn, or is it something that we naturally command when we are in the right mindset and attitude?

It’s difficult to project confidence until we actually know what it feels like to be confident. And so I know that respect is much the same. I must live in integrity and become comfortable being respectable in order to radiate respectability.

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Not only do I have an impact in my everyday life, but I also have an unconsidered massive online imprint that I leave behind, too. There’s lots of me out there, different versions of myself leaving footprints over time in the online world. Blog posts, social media accounts, my websites, articles, online reviews by me or for me, places I have been tagged and don’t even know about. 

What do we do with all that? It’s wild. I suppose it points out how indelible we are in a weird way. That despite ourselves, we leave an impression behind even when we aren’t aware of it, even if we personally have forgotten it.

How much of my life is really private? Is it possible these days to create privacy, and how often do I not bother with privacy for the sake of convenience? It’s something we all have to deal with in this era.

Most of us choose convenience over privacy 99 times out of 100. It’s actually difficult to choose privacy with the way we have set things up online! Yet here we are. I am not sure where to go from here, but my collection of unnecessary trackers has got to reduce!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Our mind is constructed to show us contrast and compare things. Unfortunately, this results in having unrealistic expectations about how we’re doing in life.

Rather than experiencing life as something that happens through us and with us, most of us experience it as something happening to us, or not happening to us.

We all try to live our best life, but it’s an annoying sentiment. It sets us up to wonder if we’re not doing good enough or best enough.

The wave of quiet quitting and quiet firing that’s made headlines lately highlights that we are becoming aware of unrealistic expectations about how we should spend our time and if we should constantly be striving for striving’s sake or if it’s OK to just enjoy our lives and do what needs doing without adding stress on top of that.

I’d argue that you’re doing your life just fine. You’re going to get better at stuff just by showing up and doing stuff each day. Yes, if it brings you joy, you can focus on that. But if it doesn’t you aren’t lesser or bad for finding your enjoyment and peace elsewhere.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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When we are looking for a result to bring us happiness, or that there’s something we should be doing or have to be accomplishing, it’s an automatic joy-sucker. We really seem to want to have others confirm that our suffering is contributing to a better life – but it’s really just suffering.

Finding moments of flow and being in tune with the moment can help a lot, and it might just be what makes a good life for any individual. Even though we all find our most in-tune moments through different activities, that experience is universal and positive.

When we can create meaning in our lives and do more of that, I believe we are living well. But we also shouldn’t judge ourselves for how often we can’t live up to our ideals. We don’t actually need to be “on” constantly in order to have a purposeful and great life. It is enough to exist and be who we are. And it’s even better when we can recognize how much good and kindness we cause just by living our life and being who we are.

What if existing and being in the same way as a cherished pet cat or dog is good enough, and we don’t have to do anything to prove we are good and worthy of life? If that is true, then we are so free to relax and enjoy ourselves, and share that joy and acceptance with others.  

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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I’ve noticed that when I feel deprived I am likely to fill the hole of my expectations with another easily achieved desire. For example, if I don’t have enough time and I am feeling pressed to give more energy and attention to others than I feel I have available, I will look to brownies and warm comfort foods to help me feel less deprived. It’s not a great solution, but it is something I do.

It helps to notice what I am feeling deprived of and attempt to make a decision or solution that gives me something to acknowledge that missing piece and gives back to myself. 

We spend a lot of time bouncing back and forth between what we want and what we got, and how we want to fix it. It’s dramatic!

As we give ourselves more options to help soothe ourselves, we can make better decisions, or at least decisions that support our wellbeing more than some of the automatic thoughtless actions. But we need to make sure we aren’t setting ourselves up to fail by making the alternative action more complicated than the unconscious one. Simplicity and understanding of ourselves is essential!

Change takes time, and slow change is still change. It’s OK to appreciate that and judge ourselves less for not being perfect and instantaneously getting over our human disappointments.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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If you are alive, you deal with disappointment. If you’re like me, you want to find a deeper meaning behind the disappointment. We negotiate with it, we curse it, we try to still get everything we want anyway. It takes a long time to accept sometimes.

To reach that space of calm and acceptance faster, we need to be there for ourselves at the moment that our heart skips a beat and we are panicked about the sudden shift in status. We must comfort ourselves and trust ourselves that we will be OK no matter what happened.

We have the option to mourn what is no longer available, or fight for what we want and achieve it in a different way, or adjust our expectations around what’s happening already anyway.

Acceptance is being with the space that remains where something or someone or an idea existed, and allowing that to be there even as we decide what we will do next. It might involve us changing that space’s purpose, or leaving it there, or adding something to it that wasn’t there before.

These adjustments are how we grow and continue to live and even thrive throughout our lives. And it doesn’t have to be fun, and often isn’t. It just happens.  

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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We can be easy on ourselves when we recognize that our nature is to always perceive our relationships to other people through ourselves. Our judgements arise from this space.

How can we find ways to release our drama and let ourselves relax in the midst of it all?

It definitely becomes easier if we can find some humor and wonder about our lives. Being curious about it all reduces stress and allows us to get out of our story long enough to enjoy what is.

Validating our own experience is the key to improving how we feel and genuinely moving forward.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Sometimes we have conversations with others, and we can’t figure out why they can’t seem to understand what we are saying. Often, at that same moment, the other party is feeling the same about us.

I break down a tough conversation I had with my 6-year-old about why she can’t have my stuffed animal this week. It was a surprisingly difficult but rewarding interaction!

It’s the meaning that we put on this lack of understanding that breeds resentment and conflict. It takes awareness and effort to show up open to responding to the need that the other person has and communicate our needs in a way that acknowledges their emotions, too.

When we show that we are receiving what the other person is conveying, beautiful connections happen. Being willing to notice our feelings and the meaning we have put behind anyone’s responses to us opens the door for us to notice that the other party also is experiencing the same thing! The depth of conversation you can have from this awareness is rich and often surprisingly sweet and uplifting.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Being sick highlights the difference in our personalities and coping strategies. Something about slowing down and being unable to do as much makes us react differently. Some of us become depressed, combative, sad, or relieved! There is relief in feeling justified in not pushing myself, which only points out how often I push myself on a regular basis. I find that being at a low overall energy level brings out our instinctive personalities and teaches me a lot about myself, and the people I love with.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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It is so lovely to have a cloudy day with rain all day long. After two months of drought, I had forgotten how pleasant it is to have a cloudy rainy day. And the sleep! It’s so much easier to sleep in on a rainy morning, relax with a book and feel guilt free for staying indoors when there’s rain.

Since this was recorded we had much more rain – a legitimate deluge for a couple of days that caught us up on rainfall though it may not have refilled the groundwater table. I am so thankful for nourishing water and the ability to grow plants, have drinking water, and not fear using too much water when doing laundry or running the dishwasher.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Putting our needs aside for others feels righteous for a while, and then depletes us quickly. Even when it’s a choice we make because we love someone, or perhaps especially then, there is a tipping point when caring for others starts to build resentment. I am not sure if there actually is anyone out there who truly gets their energy entirely from serving others while setting their own needs aside. At some point, we must face that we are human beings that have our own needs, too. We need to choose ourselves at least as often as we choose to do what others want or need. Otherwise, for myself at least, I become a worse version of myself that compounds over time.

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Discovering who we really are takes a long time and plenty of self-observation. It also takes a lot of self-acceptance. What do we do when who we really are isn’t who we really want to be? 

In some cases, this is a matter of personal growth and is a good thing. We all deserve to grow and evolve into the next expanded version of ourselves. But in other cases, we put a lot of effort into activities and ventures that don’t resonate with our true desires and nature.

Here are some strategies on how you can tap into what you enjoy the most and figure out how you can incorporate more of that type of activity in your life.

Also, you have my permission to let go of the stuff that’s completely draining and not at all aligned with who you are, in case you wanted it. I believe we all create a better world when we embody what we love more often than what drives us nuts.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Sometimes we fear that if we surrender to a cycle of rest, we might not ever want to ramp up into action again. Lately, I have been in a deeper cycle of slowing down and my desires for achievement are fairly low and non-compelling. It’s pretty nice.

This episode explores the feelings that come up around enjoying our slow-downs and the guilt we can feel when we can’t hold ourselves to the grueling standard of production set up by society. May it give you some grace to enjoy the place you're at, even if it's not as far along or as fast-moving as you'd like!

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Here’s what happens when you attempt to stop being busy – you face the dread of having to be with yourself while not distracting yourself from your feelings by having a lot to do. There really is a low-level panic and resistance about not-doing. SO much so that I can’t “do” resting for very long because I feel like I need to do other things. There’s just not enough time to take naps for more than 20 minutes, and taking a nap at all inspires guilty feelings for me because I have such a compulsion to be productive. I haven’t yet successfully convinced myself that a nap is truly productive. That I need every action I take to feel like it produced something says a lot about my state of mind.

We miss out on enjoyable moments when we need to be busy all the time. But divorcing myself from the value of maximum productivity is turning out to be supremely difficult. Perhaps I need to equally cultivate a value of respite, delicious laziness, and calm.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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To unlearn being busy takes a surprising effort. I seem to accumulate stuff to do at an alarming rate and constantly add more tasks to my days and weeks with an apparent intention to keep myself occupied. I never really think about why I feel so compelled to be occupied, though. Is being occupied all it’s cracked up to be?

Making lists and categorizing tasks might be unique to the last few centuries, or perhaps it’s a human need that’s morphed into something a bit unhealthy in our modern age. I think it’s important to learn how to peacefully and happily exist without needing to prove how much I did at any given moment or justify why taking time for enjoyment is deserved because I accomplished so many important things before I relaxed.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Restarting a daily practice I once had is taking more effort than I initially anticipated. My procrastination and obstacles are shedding awareness on how I have spent my time, and how quickly I filled my time and space, which inadvertently led to losing parts of my day that I really gained a lot from. Now, I am learning how to let go of what hasn’t been contributing a lot of joy to my life, to make space for something that really does bring me joy.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Encouragement and being seen at the right time in your life can change the whole way you see yourself and where you end up going from there. I have a great memory of a professor from art school noticing the way I attacked problems and assignments, and the way he acknowledged my process was so empowering it’s not exaggerating to say that he changed my life that day. Join me as I reminisce, and let’s wonder about what we need to be seen and understood about us today, so that we can go powerfully into our futures, too.

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Getting older isn’t so celebrated in the West and dealing with aging and my own mortality is much on my mind these days. It’s inevitable that we change as we live and grow and age. Nothing is constant but change, and we know this – and yet, the push for me at least has been to outsmart this natural process and keep the youth culture alive. I’m questioning my assumptions about beauty in a way that has a bit more depth than it did when I questioned this in my 20s. Let’s talk about beauty standards, body shame, and aging – and what we might be able to do to help us feel better about ourselves, no matter what age we are.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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We need to talk about anger and frustration. It’s there to give us the energy to change things and move in a different direction. Our emotions are our feedback system.

When you’ve passed through being hurt, overwhelmed, or tired, what happens next is a space of emptiness. It’s a great clearing and calm, a clean slate after that energy is gone. We don’t have the energy to care as much about the thing that just had us wound up and freaking out. Sometimes we are so drained and empty that we don’t have anything left to give.

When we have reached that stage, it’s difficult for us to care and have compassion for anything else going on. It’s why it’s so important to leave enough space to process our feelings so that we can leave enough space and room to keep compassion and caring in our hearts for others, and ourselves, too. 

It’s important to take that space because otherwise, we end up giving the very least of ourselves to others, because we are so depleted, and we receive the very least of others because that’s all they have left to give, too.

When we take time to be in our emptiness without forging on ahead prematurely, we have a chance to nurture genuine feelings of joy and care.  Sharing these feelings is what has the power to restore us even faster, and heal others along with us.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Overwhelm feels like drowning in too much input. It’s too loud, too bright, there’s too much activity and demands on your senses. And there are also too many thoughts and disconnection from why we do anything because we feel like we aren’t getting anywhere and we’re too tired. 

When we feel this level of bone-weary depletion and we want to do more, it’s time to listen to our exhaustion. It’s time to stop and let ourselves rest. It’s so important, and we shouldn’t be in a race against others or life itself to get over it the fastest.

Can we stop collecting trauma and celebrating how much trauma we have and still function through anyway?

I propose that as humans, we need to stop our endless march forward and take a break where we aren’t trying to achieve anything, and instead focus on healing and restoration and kindness towards ourselves and each other.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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What is the difference between being kind and being polite, and can we do both? How does this attempt play out in real life, and how do we tackle it and deal with the screwed-up ways we make things more complicated by dancing around our fears and needs?

This week we talk about our belief in being able to solve conflicts, and the messy ways we go about it because messy is better than rejecting our needs or refusing to address uncomfortable situations. 

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Our bodies are a remarkable expression of what we do and feel. Learning a new skill takes so much effort and coordination of our minds and bodies, and it’s so cool to realize just how much goes into each basic skill that we have. In this episode, I share my observations from teaching my daughter how to swim, and the marvel I have at how quickly we progress from one level to the next even as we master dozens of nuances and demands along the way.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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The reality of dealing with gun violence in my country is taking a toll on me, and I’m pretty sure I am not in immediate danger of dying of a gunshot wound. And yet, the threat of possibly being shot is a constant low-level alert and dread that runs in the background of my life whether I am taking my child to school or going grocery shopping or heading to the bank, or getting gas.

Assault weapons have no place in our civilian society as far as I am concerned, and we shouldn’t be selling them to anyone, let alone kids under 21 who can’t even buy a handheld pistol. But sure, let’s let them buy a weapon that can fire off 45 rounds of potential murder a minute, because – cool.

I’m traumatized by the DAILY mass murders in the US carried out using assault rifles. This is not a freedom to be upheld, it is a handicap and a cultural shame that we need to correct.

I recorded this after the Uvalde shooting, and since then there have been 20 mass shootings in the following 14 days. I’m sure by the time this goes live there will have been another dozen or so because that’s who we are as a society right now. F*** this.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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The way my feet changed when I stopped wearing shoes with arches in them has filled me with awe at how our bodies adjust and give us feedback in our everyday lives.

And, even though we do our best to behaviorally adjust our bodies and our minds, there is still a biological component that is going to do what it does. I find a lot of relief in that, too. Because none of us need additional stress trying to change ourselves beyond what is possible for us. Rather, we can appreciate all the ways our bodies can and do show up, just as we are.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Most of us will go way out of our way to avoid conflict or making someone uncomfortable or angry with us. But there are times when we simply have to speak up and stand up for ourselves and how we are feeling. Today’s podcast talks about those uncomfortable feelings that arise when conflict is inevitable, and ways we can feel more secure in stepping up for ourselves, and ultimately, in the interest of the long-term effects on our relationships with others.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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I love learning new languages, and I don’t mind learning them slowly. I take my time. My tips for learning a language and keeping it fun are to: 

Think about the vocabulary you picked up every day. Like if you’re looking at a table, see if you can just think the new word as you gaze at the table. Ah! Taberu desu! When you go somewhere, think “I’m going this place” but use the new words. “Ei de ikimasu!”

Watch videos about stuff you already like and know a lot about in the language you are learning. It’s easier to pick up the words and concepts when you already have an idea of what they are talking about and don’t need to rely on the subtitles so much.

Practice writing or reading or listening to the new language every day, even if it’s only for two or three minutes.

Immersion is always the fastest and best way to learn, but you still will learn even if you are just taking it a baby step at a time and repeating a lot every day.

For me, it’s not about perfection or mastering a skill, but I am doing to just figure it out, see what I can learn about it, and see if I can understand it more. I love to understand the underlying purpose, meaning, and concepts of a new skill. Language is fun for me, but lots of other things are fun to experiment with, too!

The lighter and more playful I am with learning new things, the more fun I have, the more likely I am to continue, and the more I eventually learn and understand.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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I recently bought a fountain ink feather pen to slow myself down and see if I could master cursive again. It is for me a lost skill. It’s been fun to learn how to write clearer by slowing down, and to notice how the brain synapses learn to fire together as I pick up a new body/mind connection.

Slowing down to go faster is a theme in my life. I first learned this in tattooing, and have had to learn it again in parenting, cooking, painting, and business building. This month, it’s learning how to slow my mind down enough to write slower and more clearly.

I discovered that as a result, this process of learning cursive with a pen that will splotch, drip, and flow has improved my regular everyday handwriting. Which is cool.

Bringing in a new skill that isn’t gravely important to my life is like hitting an upgrade button on my life. I get to enjoy a process, level up a new skill, and bring in more beauty and an immersive all-body experience for mundane tasks. I highly recommend doing something like this! I love conscious moments for delight. 

Investing in yourself and your everyday mundane experiences is a great way to honor your aesthetic, your enjoyment, and your time.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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I have an Oura Ring, and I must first say that I love it and it’s been giving me lots of useful data and is the most comfortable wearable smart device I have ever used. But I’ve noticed that it’s goals for me give me some feelings.

I noticed I have resentment about what the ring decides is a good goal for me, as well as comparisonitis about how I think other people live, and even about myself on my best days and how I can’t maintain that best day every day. It’s teaching me a lot about my internal motivation as well as what externally motivates me.

But also it’s enlightened me that I have my own natural rhythm. I now know that when I am pushed to my highest goal mark on a daily basis, assuming that the best I can do is what I should be doing all the time, I get angry and worn out very fast.

I appreciate the data that these devices give me, and I need to look out for how I interpret or self-judge that data. It’s just information. The ring is not god. When I look at it as a useful assessment of my overall daily movement and health markers, I love this thing. It’s when I try to push myself to be something other than what I am that I get down on myself.

My experience of noticing my feelings about my own data has given me a lot of insight into my personal judgments about movement and health, the ways I want to be admired or praised, and that I even look to technology to provide that praise when I don’t do it for myself.

The best thing I can do is keep going, not being extreme, and appreciate that I have a body that can do lots of things, that also gets tapped out at around 7 miles of walking per day. And that’s OK. At the end of the day, I don’t have to prove my worth to a ring. I just need to love myself.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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The houseplants I care for have once again erupted in gnats. I don’t know how else to take this but to just face it with calm and surrender. This year I must find a more effective way to handle the bugs than the very effort-intensive cleanup I did last year.

It’s incredibly frustrating to inhale small bugs in your sleep, find a floating gnat carcass in your water glass, and find your zoom meetings interrupted by pesky flies that your attendees can’t see but make you look like a lunatic as your eyes dart back and forth and you swat the air every five minutes.

How can we deal with life’s annoyances? We recognize that it’s not personal. Sometimes bad things happen and it’s not anyone’s fault or on purpose to make you upset. We recognize we have a choice in how we be with it. And sometimes, we open ourselves to the possibility that what we thought was a bad thing, like a spider in your bedroom, was actually an answer to a yet unknown trouble, like the gnats that appeared a week later in my office and in every potted plant I own.

Isn’t there a saying that goes, “Good thing? Bad thing? Who knows?”

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Saying yes too many times to things I don’t really want to do builds up a lot of resentment. When someone taps into my desire to belong, take care of people and be of benefit to those around me, it’s easy for me to say yes before I’ve even processed their request.

I like my brain space to be mellow these days, and I like simple matter-of-fact decision-making. One of my clues that I haven’t maintained a boundary is that I think about it all the time, and it clogs up my mind and creates tumultuous emotions.

I have to own my own emotions and my involvement in becoming the person who is solving someone else’s problems.

To stop overcommitting, I have to first be honest about what I want to accomplish and do for myself. What do those goals require of me mentally, timewise, financially, socially, and physically? I can only stop overcommitting if I assign value to my own goals and KNOW what they take so that I know how much a new project might overwhelm or derail my plans and desires. And that makes it a lot easier to stand by and let others resolve their goals without me taking it over or managing it for them – because I am managing myself really well instead.

When you want to please everyone, you don’t even realize you have a limit of your own until you’ve gone so far past it that you are overwhelmed, tired, and resentful. We have to stop that! Being yourself and doing your stuff is enough. We don’t need to get love by solving other people’s problems. We are worthy of love simply when existing, as we are, with no strings or favors attached.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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A worry we have when transitioning environments is that the same problems we had in our last experience might follow us to our new one. We often externalize these fears and blame our troubles on the outside circumstances rather than on ourselves. But we also have a deep worry that the situation will repeat, because we know on some level that it’s us who have the problem, and running from our problems can’t actually solve anything.

To solve the problem, we need to get honest with ourselves about the part we play in our current woes and commit to changing how we behave, feel, and think about it. And that is SO scary for us that most of the time we keep ourselves too busy to have enough time to realistically do that.

Here are some strategies for coming to terms with conflict and setting boundaries that allow us to set the security and peace that we are hoping for, even when it feels really hard.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Confidence is a sliding scale of belief in ourselves and our ability to get something done. Most of us have a variety of beliefs about ourselves in different areas of our lives.

If you rate yourself highly in an area, you are confident that you can get the job done, and no matter what it’s going to get done. And if you rate it very lowly, you don’t believe you can complete the task and you believe things will get in the way of you achieving that goal.

When we look for things that we 100% know we can do, like brushing our teeth in the morning, it’s a way we can find proof that we can do things. Confidence doesn’t have to look like a heroic movie with you dodging explosions while saving puppies – it often looks like doing regular stuff and not even noticing that we did it because it’s so easy and obvious for us.

When we practice the feeling of knowing we’re capable and what it feels like when we do things we just assume we can do or do well, it gives us a taste of what it will feel like when we accomplish the huge thing we’re scared that we can’t do yet.

Practicing this experience of being with yourself during simple easy tasks gives you the fortitude to keep trying until you are competent and feel great about a new skill that feels hard.

Sometimes building up resilience and through that, confidence, is a science of eliminating excuses.

So many of us want all of our goals to be achieved overnight, but the reality is that increasing our confidence takes time and we need that confidence to keep going and complete our goals. I try as much as I can to figure out how I need to feel and what do I need to believe about myself, in general, to get going doing the thing I am avoiding.

From there, the goals begin to be accomplished. But it takes showing up again and again, and that takes building my confidence daily on each of these tasks.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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What does overstimulation look and feel like and how does it cycle in our lives?

It feels like everything is too loud, too bright, too demanding, and overwhelming.

It can look like snapping at people you love, like wanting to scream and pull your hair out at the drop of a hat, or like staring at an email for twenty minutes without being able to bring yourself to respond.

The way I deal with it is finally admitting that I am overwhelmed and need time and space for myself to process all the input that’s coming in.

Often I realize that I get to this space of overstimulation because I felt like I have done so much without getting all the love and appreciation I wanted to get for doing so. When this is the case, taking time to spoil myself with words of gratitude and kindness helps way more than I could have anticipated. It takes the entire experience down five notches and fills up the parts of me that were drained.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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What does it mean to be an excellent receiver of gifts? Does it mean I am able to accept a gift and say thank you instead of saying, “Oh, you shouldn’t have!”

I had to work on my ability to receive, and for a long time, I could only conceive of this as receiving gifts. It didn’t occur to me that you can also receive money, fame, praise, love, surprises, friends, rest, and time.

I had to learn that I didn’t always have to be the first one to give to a relationship, but I could also allow people to come to me and receive them instead of always delivering myself.

We sometimes feel we have to fill our time and have difficulty with resting and receiving rather than doing. 

I uncovered a lack of appreciation and feeling appreciated. Receiving was difficult for me at first because I had trouble appreciating myself and being able to receive appreciation from others. As I learned to open up to this, it allowed much more love and receiving to be possible, and for more experiences to open up that I hadn’t had before.

This showed up in my finances when I noticed I was ok with trading and offering free work but had a hard time receiving money. I had to figure out why I was experiencing that, and what I could do about it.

Resolving this had a lot to do with being willing to show up vulnerably and share from my heart and have it reflected back to me.

Where am I thinking what I already have isn’t enough? The feeling of not being able to get what I want no matter what I do leads to being closed off, unwelcoming, and not open to receiving. 

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Seeking acknowledgment and praise is universal – and we often look for it outside of ourselves. 

When I am frustrated that others aren’t noticing how much I’m sacrificing myself on their behalf, I now know to look within to notice where I’m not giving myself what I need and am looking for from them. I need to question why I believe I need to do what I am doing in order to have that.

If other people are a reflection of what I’m putting out in the world, it means that when I am not seeing love, respect, and appreciation from them, maybe it’s ME who isn’t putting respect love, and praise out there.

When you’re able to slow down and ask, “What am I radiating at this moment?” If I notice I am seething in frustration, then it’s no wonder that I see frustration and anger everywhere around me. What does it take to turn that moment around and make space to feel something else?

Often it requires allowing yourself to feel exactly how you are without sending it away from yourself. It takes ownership of your experience and allows you to breathe through the emotion as you continue on with life.

I use mindfulness to watch myself and describe what I am doing at the moment without trying to alter it.

For example, I might be a person out for a walk in the sunshine where the wind is cold and my cheeks hurt, and I am feeling pissed off and waking very fast. When I can just be with myself as an impartial observer of my thoughts and feelings, it moves through faster and often I see the answer of what to do to help me feel better and give myself what I need and really wanted.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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We consume a lot of outside feedback and information constantly. There is mental clutter flying at us from all directions and I think we all feel like there’s a lot coming at us all the time. We feel a sense of duty to show up and take it all on. But it leaves us exhausted, tired and depleted, and we all recognize that we need to take care of ourselves in order to take care of everyone else we care about.

What does it mean to refill your cup? We all want to fill our cup, but the well is empty. When we turn the tap on, there’s no water flowing.

So how do we get it to come back on?

We need a break for ourselves. Not for our kids, or our spouses, coworkers, or businesses. We need to stop. We are afraid though that if we stop, it will all fall apart and our lives will break. We are terrified that if we step off the wheel, we’ll never get back on it.

This is a symptom of taking too long to have taken the break. The fear grows from withholding, not from giving and taking. We want to be allowed to care about each other and about ourselves in a human way. We need pauses to allow rest and refilling.

And the refilling – the source of nourishment and water – arises without effort. It takes time for the well to refill. But if we stop drawing from it long enough, nature takes care of this for us.

Part of this nourishment and trust in life comes from stopping long enough to be held by the universe, to allow that just for those moments, nothing is needed from you other than just existing. And existing is enough. The nourishment will flow in. You can relax, and it will be OK.

Doing something for delight and no other reason can help a lot. Rolling around on the floor to see if it feels nice, closing your eyes in a sunbeam and enjoying the warmth – these things are unusual for most of us, and the novelty of it is so nourishing. It breaks the monotony and boringness of our everyday.

What kind of fun, cool thing do you want to do? What if it could be effortless to just show up to that moment and enjoy it? This desire to break the monotony is why we LOVE vacations! But we can embrace this desire and build it into everyday moments.

If you feel like your well is empty – consider that you aren’t limited to only one well. If yours has dried up, you can find another water source! But you have to move. You have to try something different. But it will be so worth it.

Follow your joy, discover more water, and freely share it! There will be more.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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One of the ways you can tell that a goal isn’t in alignment with your values is that it feels like torture to show up and begin. Now, some discomfort is a given when you’re stretching into a new or unknown area. But there is more resistance when you’re trying to push yourself to do something that you don’t honestly want to do at all, and you question the end goal’s purpose.

I think of it as a slime factor and sludge that surrounds actions that are in misalignment, versus a kind of bliss and flow that accompanies actions towards goals that are in alignment with who you are and what you want to be in life.

When the only reason we do something is that we feel we have to or that someone else told us to do it, that’s a good time to question the underlying motivation and if the action is worth the effort, the resistance, and the struggle.

Do your goals serve you? Have you picked up the cultural goals that are out there in the ethers, or your family’s legacy of plans? Do you love that, or do you want something different?

We have to work to deconstruct the goals we inherit because they are mostly so subconscious we don’t even realize that we have a choice about some of the actions we take and paths we follow.

The things we try to build are coming from within us, and the things we inherit show up as us trying to assume the shape of a life we suppose is good and right. It’s like fitting into an uncomfortable pair of pants that just don’t fit no matter how we try.

If we have big expectations about how things have to show up for us, it causes us alarm and stress. Pushing ourselves into a corner saying that things can only happen one way is deeply upsetting. If we allow our goals to show up completed in marvelous and unpredictable ways, we make space to be delighted by our experiences.

Following our inner desires and saying yes to our smallest nudges transforms our lives. The more you can say YES to what you truly want, especially the smallest tiny things, the faster we align with who we really are, our true values and goals, and it’s way more fun, too!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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My timeline and other people’s timelines aren’t the same. And when I try to conform to what I think other people expect or want of me and I adopt their timelines it sets me up to be upset. Adopting other people’s goals for myself stresses me out. Does this happen to you, too?

Pursuing an “arbitrary” goal felt like turmoil to me and resulted in me creating drama and turmoil around me.

I couldn’t see how all this work was necessary and I desired SO MUCH attention for doing it that I normally don’t feel like I need when I am self-motivated. I basically watched myself blossom into a drama queen over the course of two weeks and had to talk myself off the cliff.

It made me wonder how often I have adopted other people’s ideas for me and felt this way, and did the experience of this ever become normal for me, or did I want to return to myself and my own goals?

I find there is a felt difference in my body that influences how I behave and express myself when I choose the expression of my goals vs. when I follow the advice of others without adding my own input or having requested the help.

I will do a lot for praise. It’s so human! I will do a lot of work, change how I do things, show up where I am uncomfortable, to get love and praise and respect from others.

What I realize now is that I need to provide that for myself. When I can give myself the love and praise I desire, I don’t need it so desperately from others. And I can feel a lot better about my small improvements because I can cheer myself on genuinely along the way.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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My phobia is blood. I have such a hard time dealing with the sight of it, but more than that, it’s the *idea* of blood leaving my body that freaks me out. This year I decided to take a home blood test to help me assess my health with more information. Even though this was a decision I made consciously of my own free will, I still had to deal with my body’s reaction to the news.

Sometimes, there’s nothing your logical mind can communicate to your body to let it know you’ll be OK. If it’s ever happened to you, you understand what I mean when I say you can be thinking, “Hey, Self, we’re fine! This is completely safe and normal! No need to go blind, deaf and full muscle-weakness on me!” while your body completely loses its shit.

This is my experience of having a phobia attack while trying to let my daughter know that it’s just me and not an advisable reaction to a simple finger prick. Then again, she already hates those, so who am I trying to convince? Ha!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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My process for reviewing the past year and setting the stage for my new year has more to do with deciding on a feeling than picking a goal or action. From the feeling, the plans develop and unfold, and it’s a lot more organic and pleasing to me.

Honestly, I want to enjoy my life. And I need to decide what I need to let go of to move into my next chapter, and what I want to amplify as I proceed.

Once I know what feeling I am settling into it, it lets me frame my thoughts around that experience as I go on. As I do that, I notice that my actions shift naturally and automatically. I love this process so much more than resolving to do things and then feeling crushed beneath them and any failure I have to achieve the thing.

This year I want to know what it’s like to embody the richness and belonging of a thriving garden.

What would it take to embody wholeness, knowing that I am absolutely connected to everything going on in my world, supported and providing to everything around me, being an important piece of my world?

How could I live to the end of my days vibrantly healthy and vital? How can I set myself up to make all my coming years thrive on a richly connected and verdant foundation?

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Around the holidays I find myself overwhelmed by how much is going on – the loudness, the cacophony of conversations, the smells of food, the different foods, the perfumes and different fabric softeners people have on their clothes. The movement, the colors, the flashing lights of Christmas decorations, the music, the decorations, the constant onslaught of stuff that takes over my space.

I discovered through the putting away of the holidays how much I value space, quiet, and the need for quiet recovery time.

Sometimes we need to accept the parts of ourselves that we don’t like so much. Making space for the truth of us helps us get through. It’s ok to see yourself honestly, to acknowledge your difficulties, and have love for yourself anyway.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Even when we have the most positive intentions and do the best we can, it’s possible for others not to perceive our positive intentions or kindness as a good thing.

With a longer, broader view of how our actions impact our future down the road and what it means to take positive action or reservation of action in the present.

I learn a lot about how this works by observing my child and her hot takes from our interactions – what I do on her behalf and the limits I set for her are not always received with gratitude and often are taken to be mean or outrageous. I learn that I also feel that way sometimes, but in both cases, we both don’t have the entire picture and it is only from our limited perspective that the limits are bad or annoying, or mean, cruel or wrong.

Our culture honors more and having a lot. We don’t want “enough”, we always have to strive for more than that. So limitations are things are hate, and we don’t like hearing there is a limit on what we might be able to achieve, and we internalize this and feel bad when we can’t “have it all.”

Being a positive influence on your own life means recognizing the humanity of your being, honoring limits, and even honoring that what might be best for us long-term might feel frustrating, annoying, and uncomfortable in the now.

Being kind to ourselves can mean saying NO, and that comes with a lot of feels, too.

Since when were we granted that all good things feel great as we do them? 

It’s only when we make a change somewhere and experiment that we can notice the difference that alternate actions makes. We can only judge this based on experience and how we feel and what shifts when we try something else. This helps us discover where we are a positive influence on ourselves, and where it’s been positive but hasn’t felt awesome all the way through. We then are able to have some wisdom, that some things we don’t enjoy are quite good for us overall.

I like to choose what kind of hard things I want to experience vs just blindly going through life dealing with hard things where I can. For example, I’d rather have a hard time going to bed early than have a hard time waking up and enjoying my day.

Paying attention and taking notes is one of the only ways I know to be able to track improvements and actually see what truly is a positive choice versus what felt good in the moment.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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It’s uncomfortable to let go of our old ways of thinking and believing.

Watching my snake Timmy handle a bad shed made me think a lot about how it works when we shed anything from our lives. Sometimes it’s easy, and other times it’s challenging.

When pieces of what we need to let go of hold on longer than we wanted we might even have to wait for the next time we evolve and grow to fully release the stuck remnants of our last version of ourselves.

What do you do when you’re stuck under something that no longer serves you and you’re ready to move beyond that belief, but you can’t see beyond where you’re at yet? Sometimes taking baby steps every day consistently can help you to add a new idea into your life. You may have to add new ideas before they have meaning for you, because you’re just trying to make a home for that new idea in your life, even if you can’t sift it out yet or know where that might be.

It’s ok if you need help to shed old beliefs, just the same as sometimes Timmy needs a helping hand to get an eye cover off that was stuck.

Recognize that growth is uncomfortable, and when we are growing it’s when we feel our most vulnerable. It’s OK to not feel amazing as you grow, it’s part of being human. Accepting ourselves in these difficult moments makes the whole experience better.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Why are so many of us searching for our purpose and experiencing confusion about what the purpose is in our lives?

Intuitively, we understand that this is an important part of our life to understand but many of us have mistaken our vocation with our purpose.

What is the purpose of just existing? I think it evolves and shifts and changes over time and we want there to be one answer that is unchangeable. We get tripped up and lost when it feels like our situation has changed or what once worked for us and was meaningful has stopped working and being meaningful.

I believe our purpose has a lot of overlap with our values, and how well we align with our values. Connecting with our purpose has a lot to do with connecting with what we value and acting in accordance with that. When we achieve this we find the deepest sense of satisfaction and meaning in our lives.

The difficulty arises when no matter how hard we work, no matter what we focus on, we don’t necessarily feel that it’s making an impact or making a difference. We want to see that our work and our efforts have had a purpose. We see this through observing results in the outside world. But if we don’t see outward results from our efforts, it is profoundly disappointing and leads to a crisis of faith in ourselves and wondering if we have misunderstood our purpose in life.

We would never want to do anything if we always felt great, so feelings up and downs helps us to move and change, to shift and grow.

There is a human longing for an impact that lasts longer than our lifetimes, and most of us recognize that we probably won’t have a timeless impact that ripples for 1000 years, and that makes us sad. And as humans, we love to change things. Even when we ourselves don’t want to change!

We need to slow down enough to notice what’s going on right now and notice how much impact our actions are having and the way they are rippling out right now. It’s what allows us to see our long-term influence. Ironically what we’re worried about happening in the future is most felt in the present, and being present lets us have the best possible impact towards the long term.

I like to let people off the hook and say, maybe just existing is OK! Maybe being alive is the miracle, and we should find the wonder in that existence, right now.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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How awful do you allow yourself to be when you’re in a foul mood? Are you able to admit when you’re having a bad day and just embrace how you’re going to be your worst self for a while?

When you admit that you’re in a foul mood and that you’re in your drama and bullshit, it’s like clearing the space for 10 more people at the table to exist, and it’s a huge relief.

The admission of your true feelings delivers freedom. You don’t have to maneuver around others or manipulate them into acting a certain way because you let them have their response to your bad mood. You’re not masking it or pretending that things are perfect when they’re not.

You can also notice that all the things you accuse everyone else of are actually what’s happening with you. It liberates you to notice how everyone else deals with crappy days and feelings too.

How crappy are you willing to be on your worst day? Not in the sense of being a jerk to others on purpose or causing misery – but in the sense of not forcing yourself out of your bad moments and instead just being with them. Are you able to talk to the demon-beast within and accept its presence in your life?

We are not our bad days, but our bad days are a part of our experience. Accepting them seems to shorten those experiences or at least our perception of them.

We all have judgments and moving through them is tough.

When we’re able to simply notice that we have a judgmental bratty side and not believe our judgments, it makes life easier. It also makes life easier to notice that judgments are going to happen, it’s a part of being human.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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We all have blocks around taking care of ourselves, and when we don’t know how to take care of ourselves, we need to learn how to increase our ability to receive kindness.

Sometimes we believe being kind to ourselves is tuning out and doing automatic things like watching Netflix or scrolling Instagram.

Being kind to ourselves requires being present and engaged. We have to do something. But we sometimes feel like actively doing something for ourselves feels selfish. To get around this, it can help to ask what we would do or give to a friend who is in the situation we are in. It can teach us how to take care of ourselves with more than cursory basics.

We can also appreciate the experience of doing something kind for other people and know that it’s also serving us as we do it.

When doing the thing you thought would be rewarding feels more like a burden or a chore or even a punishment, ask, “What would it take to enjoy this?” Giving your brain a possibility to think on that asks what positive could be experienced can break up the stress and agony. Plus, it can shake you out of it enough to discover why you wanted to do it in the first place and let you reconnect with that desire, which helps it become rewarding again.

We constantly have an inner dialogue building meaning about what’s happening around us. It’s a lot of noise, and the more you’re capable of being with those thoughts and being present with them, the kinder you can be to and with yourself.

It’s a misconception that kindness is easy or always feels good. Kindness is caring, giving nourishment, acknowledging your needs, and giving yourself the best response you can.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Massive growth is often subtle and layered. When we are breaking through to the other side of any challenge or goal, it often looks a lot like a grind where you only perceive the gains in retrospect.

Showing up to do things and keeping commitments to myself and others impacts the way I see myself and my energy has been greatly improved through the process.

Having outside eyes to show me how to do things that are blind spots for me has been so helpful.

Derailment and unexpected interruptions are going to happen. How we deal with it determines how we experience the future. I had to get past the barrier of believing I only had one option when things got hard.

Growth does weird exponential things. It’s why we see other people succeeding and assume it’s always been that good for them, but out the gate progress generally looks like a flatline or backsliding down a ravine. It’s only later when momentum kicks up that we see that 10X growth. But it can only happen when we keep showing up.

It’s the difference between knowing who you are vs just hoping that’s who you are. We have to teach ourselves this distinction.

Treading water builds up experience and shows you what’s working, what isn’t, and what is getting you the results that you want. It gives you time to direct that energy and learn how to direct it well so that you get what you want.

May your coming year be filled with growth, progress, and massive wins!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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How do we let in more abundance and visibility?

Why are you showing up, how are you showing up, and if you’re hiding, why are you hiding and how is that serving you?

I show up most when I know I have value to share. When my focus is not on myself, it’s easiest to show up. When I'm truly showing up to offer to others without it being about me, or when I am a conduit for the work, then it’s easy.

Showing up is easiest when the offer is true and honest.

When we have something moving through us to offer others, we become more visible and are better received. But showing up honestly about who we are and what we have to offer is really vulnerable. So that can feel very scary and unsafe.

Learning how to give helps us be received.

We can’t be received without having something to give, so learning how to feel safe to give is important in order to create a space where being received, accepted, and seen is possible.

The truth is that if we show up, we are going to be rejected by some people as well as received and appreciated by others.

But these are two sides of the same coin. Because people can only reject or receive from us if we show up and offer it in the first place.

So do we want to offer real thoughts, insights, wisdom, and gifts, or only offer what we feel is safe? Do we only offer the stuff that we see accepted by others or by ourselves in order to feel assured of acceptance? If so does that make us a smaller version of ourselves?

It’s easiest to keep showing up when you feel that the way you are showing up is authentic to how you truly feel and in alignment with your real values.

You don’t have to show up only one way. You can show up ALL the ways, and when you allow that to be true for you, showing up becomes a whole lot easier and way more abundant.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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It’s so easy to make everything about us and what we do small. But what we do matters. What you do MATTERS. In every moment we get to choose how we show up. And we can choose to appreciate how we’ve been no matter how that’s turned out.

This year you have done a lot of stuff. And you probably want to say that it wasn’t a big deal. But I’m here to tell you it WAS a big deal.

It’s important to celebrate the small and underwhelming accomplishments that make up our lives – because no matter what you create, within days or weeks or months, you are going to forget that you couldn’t do that last week, and it’s going to be normal to you.

Our minds focus on what’s broken, on what’s wrong and missing. But so much happiness comes from accepting that we actually kick ass and make things happen all the time. Our life doesn’t happen to us. We make it happen.

I wish you another year of accomplishments. The big kind. And especially lots of little ones. The underwhelming achievements that you want to write off, but now you know really matter. The ones that make up your life. So go celebrate it!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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The holiday season tends to stir up the crazy in all of us. But what if we could let that all go and not find the innate drama so terribly pressing? In this episode of Full Spectrum Feeling, I’m exploring how giving up my expectation that others’ experiences have anything to do with me has set me gloriously free and led to finally having enjoyable holiday gatherings.

I call this the Art of Giving Zero Fucks, and it shows up in all areas of my life now. It’s not just about gaining perspective as we grow older – it’s about allowing space for things to exist as they are without feeling the need to alter and arrange them constantly.

Have a listen and see how you, too, can set your fucks free and stop stressing about the stuff that you can’t actually change anyway. I’ll bet it’ll be fun!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Ann Hince and I share the same philosophy when it comes to feeling our feelings – they are in our bodies as much as in our emotions and thoughts. By fully feeling them and allowing them to pass through us rather than wallowing in them, we can heal our bodies and lives faster than we imagined possible. She shares some techniques for doing just that so you can release what isn’t serving you and enjoy your life more.

Total acceptance of the feeling we’re feeling is what allows it to release and let go.

But getting there can be hard! We talk about how to begin when it feels overwhelming, what to do when we realize we’ve gotten to a vulnerable place and our work isn’t done yet, and how to go deeper and truly let it all go.

You can learn more about Ann and order her book here:

https://annhince.com/ 

You can learn more about EFT and the points here:

https://eftinternational.org/

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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We have the power to make our own holidays and rituals in our lives. This is the story of how our family invented “Practice Thanksgiving” and how it’s become our most favorite tradition. Being grateful deserves more than one day a year, and making space to celebrate with friends and experiment with new dishes is so nourishing.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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There is a stigma around discomfort – we feel shame and guilt and frustration about being caught in an uncomfortable place. This taboo against discomfort can lead us to self-sabotage our own efforts at growing because growth and change are – you guessed it – uncomfortable!

How can we handle moments of unease and discomfort better? How can we get past the overlayed feelings of fear, frustration, and shame so that we can continue to grow and better our lives?

This episode explores all the feels and shares my experience of how I hold myself and comfort myself through what feels yucky, gross, awful, and scary.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Sometimes we think what we’re thinking is so obvious that everyone must know it and we can’t figure out why they aren’t responding the way we want. Did you know that other people can’t hear your thoughts? It’s easy to forget that when we are emotional or passionate about something, not everyone else is in the same space as us.

Episode highlights:

02:30    No matter how much I want to think or project thoughts or feelings onto other people or get them to pick up on what I’m feeling – they cannot read my mind.

03:00    Others are living their own life living their own feelings and they cannot pick up on what we want if we don’t explicitly show them or tell them.

03:45    Empaths have a bigger problem with this phenomenon than other people because we/they feel like they are always picking up on others’ feelings.

04:30    Because not everyone else can pick up on feelings in the same way, and we have to use our words to share what we are feeling with others so that they can understand us better.

05:30    When we are shooting arrows at another person with our energy in an attempt to get them to stop, we perceive this as us yelling at them, even if we never opened our mouths.

06:30    When someone else is sending a lot of energy at you, they can’t perceive when you’re sending a lot of energy back at them because their dam is releasing and that’s what they are experiencing. They feel relief, even if for you, you feel annoyance or pain.

09:13    If we haven’t gotten comfortable telling people we are annoyed by the time we’re adults, we have a lot of baggage and preconceptions about how that act can be perceived and it becomes difficult for us.

10:10    We have to look out for ourselves and our boundaries, and we are also allowed to express them without taking responsibility for how the other person experiences your request. I recommend always approaching this with kindness.

12:00    We typically entrench meaning about what feeling a certain feeling means by the time we are adults, and then this flavors what we think other people think about us when we perceive them feeling that emotion.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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You know how I was talking about up-leveling myself in the last episode? Getting professional photos for my brand was high on my list – this is what it was like to have my branding shoot with Carrie Roseman Studios. Hint – it was awesome!

You can check out Carrie here:
https://carrieroseman.com/ 
@carrierosemanstudios

Episode Highlights:

00:30    Carrie is all about helping you step into your next-level self and see yourself the way others see you and it’s amazing!

01:00    My branding shoot was for my business and my podcast, but also a legacy for me to remember who I was in this moment in my life and where I am right now as a woman.

01:40    The whole process of creating these photos was curated by Carrie and her team to make me feel comfortable and hold my hand through each step.

02:00    It was cool to be taken through a thought process that considers so deeply the Why behind taking photos of myself.

02:30    Having someone navigate through my wardrobe and choose with me what will be used in the session days beforehand took so much stress out of photoshoot day.

04:00    Nothing makes you feel like more of a celebrity than a placard at the door saying “Welcome Blaze” to your photoshoot!

06:00    Beyond the primping and making me look awesome on camera, the best part was having them bring out me and my personality in each shot.

07:30    I now know why next-level Blaze does this: because it feels badass and awesome to be treated that way and to show up for that.

08:00    It was an instantaneous shift in how I showed up for clients after that shoot, too, which was directly reflecting the feelings I had of expansion and joy and empowerment.

08:40    I know what’s possible and I know who I am, and I can keep showing up that way and the results will follow.

 10:00   Watching myself be presented in a film with the same quality and emotion that I see in professionals I admire who are doing what they love took my breath away.

11:50    These are professional goddamn photos and it’s so much better than anything I could possibly capture on my own, full stop.

12:30    What holds you back from getting photos like these is the fear that you’re not ready yet – but just like with anything, there’s always going to be an excuse or a desire for a better time. You just have to go for it.

12:50    It’s the act of you doing anything that gets you there, being the person you were worried you couldn’t become.

13:20    In diving in, what you need to learn is revealed.

13:40    The only thing separating you from the future you want is you showing up.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Growing into the next level of yourself is uncomfortable and awkward, like being a teenager. There is an innocence and hope as well and that’s what makes it bearable.

01:30    Most of us have growth phases that are more sporadic as we become adults, but the similarity in how we feel in a growth phase is similar to what we feel like as teenagers.

02:00    As we grow, we recognize that we want to join a new “in-group” of people but we all have the fear of not belonging there or being welcomed.

02:30    As we attempt to enact what we are growing into, there is always the pain of failure and not matching our own inflated expectation of how it was supposed to be.

03:50    Leveling up in my life lately has felt a bit like when I tripped up the stairs in high school and chose to pretend I wasn’t bleeding through my jeans to avoid being noticed as I limped to class.

04:00    The question on my mind was, “Who is next-level Blaze and how do I become that?”

05:00    I have learned not to ask myself so much what I want to do, but to ask how do I want to feel, and work from there.

05:20    I don’t believe that accomplishing a lot of things means success anymore. Now I believe it is feeling how I want to feel more of the time.

06:00    Looking at my list I asked, why haven’t I started it yet, and what would it feel like if I did that?

07:00    Accomplishing anything on my list will not change the way I feel right now. And it might not even change the way I feel after I do them.

07:20    A better question is, “What do I need to be feeling right now to make doing those things possible?”

08:10    Last time I cut sugar from my diet I used money as my motivator and invested in a program to help me get over the hump because willpower alone couldn’t do it for me.

08:55    Just like when we’re teenagers, we can’t see how far we’ve come and how different we are while we are in the awkward stages of growth. But it’s happening, all the same.

09:00    In any endeavor we face a challenging moment. In my quest to end sugar, my hurdle was eating cookies this week and delusionally thinking they wouldn’t taste good. But they did, and I ate many.

11:50    How close or far do you feel from achieving the items on your next-level list?

12:00    Doing these things won’t change who you are but you might feel scared. It won’t change you fundamentally to join the PTO, Blaze!

14:45    It’s not so hard to keep going if you make only one simple decision and the next thing you have to do is just show up and it’s ok to feel any way you feel about it.

15:00    Starting all the things on my next-level list made me realize that not only was it possible for it to happen, but it didn’t have to look any particular way.

15:50    Sometimes becoming next-level you just looks like living your life.

16:50    I used to think a plateau meant stagnation or nothing is happening, but now I see that plateaus are these awesome periods of practice and integration and worthy of lots of appreciation.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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How to overcome the emotional setbacks on our weight loss journeys from experience and with compassion - I am honored to be speaking as an expert on emotional burnout at the Beyond the Food Weight Loss Summit on Thursday, November 4th.

You can join the summit for free here:

https://pamelapedrick.krtra.com/t/5CNH9RSeAydT

I also share tips and tricks on how to get the most out of online summit attendance in this podcast, so if you're someone who gets overwhelmed with how much is offered and tunes out before you get what you were looking for - this is how to zone in on exactly what you want and be thrilled with the reminder emails instead of finding them cluttering up your inbox.

Cheers to your health, happiness, and achieving your fitness goals!

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Being sick with a common cold in the age of covid comes with a lot of feels. What was once a minor inconvenience is now a week-long emotional roller coaster with added trials of covid testing, contact tracing, and if you’re a parent, the mayhem of supervising a quarantined student while trying to work from home. Good luck!

 Episode Highlights:

00:40    Before school started I had an intense fear and dread for the eventual covid exposure shut down. Now that I’ve been through one, I still have these feelings.

00:55    Kids are germ factories – how did I think this was going to turn out? Of course, we were all sick within 14 days of school starting!

01:40    My joy was through the roof for my kid starting school, but it was also for myself, to finally have time for me and what I want and need to do.

02:00    My daughter starting school showed me how much I was getting done in the gaps.

03:15    As my husband and I simultaneously showed the same symptoms as my daughter, we knew we were all sick – but with what?

03:50    The number of mental gymnastics we undertook trying to figure out where we caught our cold was next level and something we never would have thought about two years ago.

05:20    Then we get the dreaded call… “Come get your kid, she’s been exposed to someone who has covid.”

06:00    Having our child quarantined at home disrupted all three of the adults’ schedules who live here because amazingly in the mere 2 weeks since she started school, our calendars are full.

07:00    I have so much sympathy for EVERYONE right now because this is the level of craziness that we’re dealing with pretty much constantly as a collective.

07:45    How do we as a society function when having a slight tickle to your throat and a cough can plunge you into the five stages of grief as you cope with all the hurdles you have to jump now?

09:00    My frustration at the lack of convenient and available covid testing is high, and I’m furious at the unavailability of rapid tests to buy on my own dime, too.

11:20    In the thick of it, there was no outlet for the frustration and fear, I just had to hold onto it until the moment passed.

12:00    The child covid quarantine means you’re constantly trying to figure out what thing you have in your house will distract your kid long enough to get 5 minutes of uninterrupted work done.

13:20    It feels like at this point in time we’re in a mad dash to dodge all of the sicknesses but it’s an impossible game to win.

13:30    Being sick seems so much more consequential than it did two years ago.

15:00    I don’t want to dissuade my kid from using logic to figure out who was her exposure contact, but at the same time want to impart that we don’t ever judge a kid for getting sick or being sick.

16:50    When we resonate with someone’s anger and frustration, it’s because we already have that feeling, too. We can’t pick up what we don’t match.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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What does giving up teach us about ourselves and our real values? At what point do we give up on a goal or a project or ourselves and why? Is there truth or a gift in those moments?

00:45    When you start a project do you leave yourself an out?

01:00    I think we set ourselves up to have a path that’s easier to follow, then judge ourselves for following it.

01:30    In setting goals, I seem to consistently pick the second-best action rather than the fastest or most effective route.

03:40    When my efforts seem to fail to get me the progress or results I wanted, my motivation plummets and I want to give up.

04:00    I judge myself for failing to make progress when in reality I just chose the hardest way to get to my goal and I haven’t stuck with it long enough yet.

06:00    So many of my actions are distractions disguised as stepping stones to my goals, but they’re not actually leading there.

07:30    Where have I set myself up to actually complete a goal? Or have I set myself up to complete infinite side quests?

08:18    Of course I am going to choose the mini-goals that feel super fun, easy, and able to be accomplished in a short amount of time.

09:00    I feel totally accomplished when I can check things off my list, even if they are unimportant.

09:30    How are you setting yourself up to move forward in your life? What have you chosen is important to do?

10:30    When we set ourselves up to fail at something, it’s often because the goals we say we have aren’t the goals we actually have in our hearts.

11:40    It’s difficult to motivate around the bigger goal I say I have when I am already enjoying my life as it is.

13:50    Were my activities serving a purpose? Yes. Were they serving the purpose of the goal I thought I was pursuing? No.

14:50    What is my goal, and am I ready for that goal right now, or not?

15:30    Where have I subconsciously set myself up to succeed or fail at something, and do I want to do anything about it?

16:20    Maybe you’re not as interested in the goal you set as you said you were.

17:20    The things we choose to do serve our purposes, whether we are conscious of them or not.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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We all hate unpredictability. We just really want to know what’s going to happen, what to expect, and what’s expected of us. But life always has other plans…

Episode Highlights

01:00    When told to prepare, we prepare – but we feel awfully betrayed if our efforts were unnecessary.

01:50    No matter what, we can come up with something to be upset about. But we can equally come up with things to be happy about, too.

02:00    Our crankiness is because we are all freaking tired of not knowing what the f is going on anymore.

04:00    Everyone is too tired to fight for supplies these days. No food? Try another aisle, buy the shitty cereal and jerky, and move on.

05:30    If it doesn’t work out, nothing is really working out lately, so whatever.

06:15    On the upside, prepping for a storm made me clean my yard more thoroughly than I have in years.

07:20    Immediately everyone blew up on social media their pent-up rage about how they were lied to about the severity of this storm.

08:00    People were mad they had to do extra work to prepare for something that didn’t even happen.

09:20    Because we have no idea what’s going on with society, what’s going to happen, or what will be expected of us, we’re continually tired and distrustful.

11:00    The illusion we had of predictability was always an illusion, but we worked really hard to build it in and when it gets insulted we get bitter and prone to snapping.

12:00    I feel like no matter what I prepare for it won’t matter because I will have it wrong. And that’s exhausting and depressing.

13:10    We can’t truly plan for or outsmart the future, but we’re always going to try.

13:30    How do we deal with unpredictability without driving ourselves crazy?

14:00    Learning to lose the judgment I have about dropping things when I lose energy has been the challenge of this year for me.

15:40    I have adopted the value that having a ton of energy is both important and respectable and a thing I should strive for, but I can’t always have overabundant flowing energy.

17:30    The best we can do is conserve our energy for what truly matters to us, and that will be different for all of us, too.

18:00    No amount of trying to dive ahead is going to change the situation or change what’s appropriate for action right now.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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There are an incredible amount of things that contribute to us having mental fatigue and dealing with this is important if we want to live happier lives with attainable expectations.

Episode Highlights

01:30    Physically fatiguing my body can completely destroy my ability to make decisions and even remember things.

02:00    Post-workout my inability to process information and make even minor decisions is comical.

03:00    Almost all of us are done with making decisions by noon if we are really honest with ourselves.

03:30    Despite 100% of the time never meeting my ideal start of day routine goals, I still mentally tally it every single morning.

05:00    I find myself burning through decisions without even making them! It’s crazy.

06:00    The quality of our decisions decreases throughout the course of the day.

06:30    Saving mental energy by reducing important decisions has been key in increasing my quality of life. I try to keep it to three big decisions a day and let the rest be as inconsequential as possible.

08:00    Getting the biggest tasks off the table before noon really liberates me from agonizing over decisions late in the day.

09:00    Happiness is knowing what I’m not equipped to do or am not interested enough to do and accepting that about myself.

10:00    My life has been interruptible for the last half-decade. Mini goals have become the only goals.

11:00    Adding any kind of physical effort on top of mental effort means I need recovery time before I can make a good decision again.

12:00    Using your brain or creativity fatigues your body as much as fatiguing your body fatigues your brain.

13:00    We can’t be expected to function at peak performance all the time, even though we wish we could.

13:20    Willpower will help you start something, but it won’t help you make a great decision while you’re there.

15:00    We are physical beings that have the delusion that our brains have infinite power no matter what we demand of our bodies and minds.

16:00    Are you easy on yourself when you hit the wall? Do you take the time to power yourself back up?

16:45    Allowing yourself to surrender to being useless after a giant physical or mental effort feels great.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Have you ever noticed that certain situations bring up a familiar voice in your head that tells you a story about what’s going on and what to expect? Where did these voices come from? And how can we latch onto the useful ones and dismiss the painful ones?

Episode Highlights

01:30    I have the inner laziness voice that tells me how disappointing and lazy I am.

02:00    How do I forge a relationship with the more useful voices in my head?

03:00    I have three strong voices that show up when I start new projects. The encourager, the realistic expectations guy, and the prepare for extreme disappointment voice.

04:00    I love the encouraging internal voice that cheers me on, and I am not a fan of my internal hater – but I still believe both of them!

05:00    My internal regulator is the voice that sees the bigger picture and points out the obvious things I want to ignore.

06:30    How do you motivate yourself to do hard things when you have lots of other beliefs that are telling you to hunker down, give up, and avoid disappointment?

07:00    We accumulate subconscious beliefs through a lifetime of experiences that educated us about how the world works and what’s possible for us. They aren’t all great, and they might not be true.

08:10    Each voice or belief we have has its own feeling that arises with it.

09:00    No matter how ugly an internal voice is, it’s usually trying to protect us from something.

10:30    In the process of asking myself who can I become and what could I do in the world I am noticing a ton of interesting voices and hidden beliefs arising.

11:00    We most often find ourselves following the paths we’ve walked the most often, whether we like them or not.

12:00    Is this thought really true or is it just the lens I saw it through at the time?

13:00    Does anyone EVER have their day flow out according to the way they hoped it would the night before?

14:00    Are my thoughts and beliefs helpful to the way I want to live right now, or are they making my life a living hell?

15:00    Hang onto the thoughts and beliefs that make you a better person and shed the ones that make you feel bad about yourself and the world.

16:30    What would happen if I just didn’t believe this non-useful thought as much as I did yesterday?

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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What does worthiness mean? Is it about what you earn? Is it about what you allow into your life or strive for? How can we instill worthiness in each other and in ourselves?

Episode Highlights

00:45 There are so many unconscious beliefs that get in the way of feeling worthy and that communicate that worthiness is contingent on earning something.

01:30    I ask myself, “Am I supposed to be doing this?” “Am I supposed to avoid doing that?” “Should I have this, or go here, or ask first?”

02:00    We interpret our worth through the lens of earning. If I work harder, then someone will notice that and reward me for it.

02:30    We have tiers in society based on how much you earn that are gateways to what you can afford, where you can go, and what you can get away with or do.

03:00    Is inner acceptance different from worthiness? Is worthiness more about earning and proving?

04:00    How can we simultaneously want to teach everyone that we all belong when clearly that isn’t the case in our society at all?

04:30    Trying to belong and be worthy leads us to fake it til we make it, which leads to feeling like an imposter in our own lives.

05:00    The only person I can teach worthiness to is myself.

05:15    I can only lead through example and I can’t make anyone else feel what I want them to feel.

07:00    My own unworthiness has to do with fear of disappointing others.

08:00    When we feel like we failed at the expectations of others who we respect and care about, shame consumes us and we don’t want to show our face.

09:30    What do we need as a distraction to shake us out of our shame and help us feel acceptable and part of the team again?

10:00    It’s not that other people are judging us constantly, it’s that we do it for them by judging ourselves.

11:30    As human beings we experience the world through our own senses and self-centeredness.

12:40    Feeling unworthy has a lot to do with grieving that we missed an opportunity to do life better than we just did and fearing we won’t get another chance.

13:30    Obstacles are a part of life and it’s OK to look at your life and say, well, this is a mess! And then find a way beyond or with the obstacles.

14:30    This is just a situation. It has nothing to do with me, or what I did. This just is what’s happening right now.

15:00    Once you’ve handled the situation, you don’t need to hide behind the kitchen counter anymore.

15:50    The human condition seems to have us so primed to be concerned about everything and filled with angst about what we want.

17:40    Do you think of worthiness in terms of belonging, earning, accepting, or something else?

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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What do I expect is going to happen in my life vs what actually happens? Is it always what I predict, or does it surprise me? Where do I expect things to happen that I don’t want? And how can I use that knowledge to form better results?

Episode highlights:

01:00    Do our expectations form our reality? Can I change my reality by changing my expectations?

01:40    I’m experimenting with being a pattern disruptor in my life to see what I can improve.

02:00    I surge in like the sea with my goals, and then I recede like the sea and back off and make excuses.

02:40    That pattern of abandoning momentum in my life comes up for many different reasons, but there is always an area of my life where I see this the most.

03:30    What if I actually expected I was a great business person? What would I do differently?

04:20    What am I doing that makes this pattern show up in my life, and what am I not doing that’s making this happen?

05:00    The areas of my life where I feel like I am slipping are the places that I don’t have the same passion as I do for other areas.

05:45    I don’t have a lot of answers, but I do have plenty of excuses…

06:14    If I take the energy I have for showing up for my kid and duplicated it in the places that I let things slide, what would be possible?

07:00    I feel very threatened by anything that could take away from the stuff and people I care about, even if that perception is totally misguided.

08:30    The values that have been holding up my progress in business are also the values that have boosted my presence in other areas of my life, and actually, I love those values.

10:30    It’s hard to ask for support for myself, but I find it easy to offer and give my support. It’s unbalanced but it’s where I’m at.

12:00    Wow, I really have issues with money, and asking for money, and receiving money… that’s where I need to do the work.

12:30    I’m responsible for everything in my life and in my business, and that’s fabulous because it means I can change anything I want to change.

13:00    If I show up with the expectation that I can change things now that I know they need changing, that’s so easy and makes situations so much more fixable.

14:50    What we expect becomes what manifests in our lives, for good or for ill.

15:00    When you consciously observe your expectations you can start to see the gaps that are forming your results and adjust from there.

16:16    What would someone else do to get the result I want and what are they expecting that I am not?

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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My kid heads to school for the first time this fall and it opens up so many opportunities for her and for me, too. And also feelings. Lots of feelings!

Episode Highlights

00:30    It’s always extra emotional and challenging when you head into a “first” anything.

01:00    My parenthood so far has been an education in my own psychology, to put it mildly.

03:00    OMG, yes, please go have your own space, your own experience, and let me have my own thing, too, finally! Said every mom at the end of the toddler years

04:00    It feels like if I don’t go out of my way and hunt information down, no information is forthcoming about anything in life, but particularly about my kid’s school situation.

05:30    When communication is lacking it makes it really hard to plan a life.

06:00    I can’t be outraged for years without refueling – eventually I just stop being able to care that much and focus on survival instead.

07:00    These days we seem to be lacking the community and support that I can only assume was the basis for humanity making it this far. It’s like we’ve lost all sense of connection in our mad dash to matter as individuals.

08:40    For each thing I am excited about my daughter gaining this year, I am equally excited about what I gain – and it’s a lot of the same things.

09:30    I frequently think of parenthood as this experiment where you start out thinking it’s about how you can shape a better human than you are, but it turns into showing you the human you are instead.

10:40    If I don’t plan ahead what I’d like to fill in the new space in my life, I know stuff will just fall in and fill it up without my awareness.

11:30    This transition is an opportunity to consciously decide what I’d like my experience to become and take steps to make that happen.

11:50    When given the opportunity to take care of myself, my thought was, “what, you mean EVERY DAY? That’s crazy!”

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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For kicks this summer I took a feng shui class to see if it would benefit me and my family and make our space feel nicer to live in. The results have been illuminating!

Episode highlights

01:00    Our lives are formed not just by our thoughts and actions, but by the spaces in which we live.

01:10    We often need a physical reminder or a change in our space to make our mental changes last.

01:30    As you shift your space to be more in line with your purpose, you can enhance the way opportunities show up for you.

02:15    Shifting the way I arrange a space should be intuitive, and when I get it right I can tell – but often the changes towards better functionality and energy flow are counterintuitive to what I was doing.

03:30    This process is highlighting my tendency to get really invested in an idea past the point of reason, which I suppose is knowledge worth having.

06:00    What if no matter what you’re out to fix, nothing is a problem and no matter what you choose to do, it will be fine?

07:50    The big gain for me in practicing feng shui is decluttering.

09:00    It’s possible to place the objects in your home in locations that subconsciously activate you to take better actions and live more harmoniously in your space.

12:20    It’s not about the object or image, it’s about the way it makes you feel and what it ties into your subconscious.

14:40    What do the images in your space make you think about or feel? Do you like them?

16:20    If you were a king or queen, where would you want to sit or spend your time in your home?

17:40    I started this feng shui experiment for fun, but I am actually seeing and feeling the difference already only a few weeks later

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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How do you define your healthy boundaries? As empaths, this has a lot to do with deciding how much responsibility you take for yourself and allow others to have.

Episode Highlights:

00:30    Most of us define boundaries as a line in the sand past which we won’t tolerate something, and it tends to be emotionally charged.

01:40    If you’re a highly sensitive person you probably spend a lot of time contemplating your boundaries and trying to strengthen them.

02:10    When you’re empathic, you tend to assume that you’re responsible for what others around you are feeling because you feel it so strongly and after all, you were there.

02:30    When I was a kid, it was hard to see where I ended and the world began, so I felt responsible for EVERYTHING that happened even if objectively that couldn’t be possible.

02:40    A boundary is where one thing ends and another begins, which seems simple – and yet it’s so hard to apply this concept to people because it’s hard to say where we actually end and otherness begins.

03:30    When people talk about wanting better boundaries, they usually are saying they want to be clearer on where their energy ends and not absorbing so much of other people’s energy.

06:00    Could having a good boundary be about deciding what emotions or energy we want to pick up from others and what energy and emotions we will pass on?

07:30    It feels really good to decide with authority that you can feel how you want to feel, and others get to feel how they want to feel, and it doesn’t have to be the same.

08:00    Choosing your energy in your space and letting others have theirs relieves you of the empathic misunderstanding that if you feel it, you have to fix it.

09:20    Sometimes we pick up someone else’s sadness or worry and we think we’ve freed the other person by taking on their pain when really, we’ve only duplicated their pain in ourselves.

10:39    Just for now, it’s 100% ok that I feel whatever I’m feeling, and it’s 100% ok for everyone else to feel what they’re feeling, too.

11:50    Empaths: it’s OK not to match what anyone else is feeling. It’s Ok to feel and understand what they feel, and choose not to also feel that way.

13:00    Children teach us that we as humans are capable of moving through emotions quickly and we don’t have to hold onto them or make them a habit.

13:50    Having a healthy boundary means I can sense when I am vibrating at the same energy level as someone else and make a conscious decision about how I want to vibe, and then go there.

16:30    If you can say YES to whatever you are feeling your emotions tend to smooth out.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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How We Experience Time

Taking a note from experience, memory, and observing my kid, this podcast explores how we can teach ourselves to not only experience having more time but have a more enjoyable time doing it.

Episode Highlights

00:30    As an adult, time seems to speed up and we have too much to do and not enough time for the stuff we want to do.

01:00    Whenever you’re doing something you dread, hate doing, or are avoiding, time seems to slow down to the point you feel trapped.

01:30    After spending a lot of agonizing time doing things you hate, you look back and wonder where your time went because it seems like it passed really fast in retrospect.

01:37    When you do something you love, time seems to stand still and expand in the same way that the experience expands and opens you up.

03:00    When we’re enjoying what we are doing and are fully present, time is expansive.

03:30    Why do we experience time taking so long as a kid and then losing that as adults?

04:03    I want to experience my life more fully, and I see my daughter doing that as a child and I try to learn how to replicate what she’s doing that makes things so engaging for her.

05:00    When we are really engaged in something in our lives, invested in it and not off somewhere else in our minds, time really does seem to slow down. Suddenly, there’s plenty.

05:40    The secret to having more time is to somehow get our minds and emotions fully present in the NOW, where time ceases to be relevant, and we just exist.

06:00    If you’re not in the past, or off in the future, you get to be present and enjoy the moments that are actually here.

06:10    Our minds really love to spin off into the future or the past, and that’s how we get to the end of our day and wonder where the hell did our day go?

06:50    There’s so much added judgment on top of our lists of things we believe we have to do that makes our experience of time kind of suck as adults.

07:25    What if we could not be so burdened by our stuff and inherit some of the innocence of children?

08:27    Time feels more burdensome and oppressive for me when I feel I am racing against the clock for something.

08:55    “How much of this stuff is true?” This is the question we need to ask ourselves to unlock the possibility of more time.

09:18    Children that experience the expansiveness of time seem to assume that they are not alone in any task that needs completing. Adults who experience the fleetingness of time seem to assume they are the only one who can get it done.

09:40    It seems to me that joy is what makes time more expansive.

10:00    I am able to be very busy but still feel like I had a lot of time in my day when I am not worried about what else I need to get done but appreciate what actually is getting done.

10:10    Which feels better: “Oh god, I have so much to get done?” or “Wow, look how much I got done!” Both can be true, but one feels better.

10:50    When I focus on 15 things to get done, none of them get done very well or at all, and the end of my day feels pretty shitty.

13:10    Whatever I choose to do now, I am learning to just wholeheartedly dive i

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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We get hung up believing there is or ought to be a divine or grander purpose to our existence than simply existing. Is that true or necessary to have a life that has a positive impact? How do you get in alignment with your purpose?

Episode Highlights

00:20    It’s uniquely human to believe that there is some grander purpose to existing than existing alone and to fear we’ve fallen out of alignment with our purpose.

00:30    What if no matter what action or inaction you’ve taken, you’re in alignment with your purpose of existing. What if that’s what free will really is – the ability to do what we want and choose even as we are fulfilling our contract of existence by default?

01:30    When we say how do I stay in alignment with my purpose, what we’re really asking is how do I return to an action I’ve decided is worthy of my effort when things get hard and progress is disappointing.

01:50    We want to leave a legacy from our existence and believe in our impact beyond only our own experience and our own lives. This is a desire to connect and be received.

02:30    We create narrow avenues that we deem appropriate for our impact and service, and then unfortunately only notice our impact in those avenues and nowhere else.

02:40    No matter what parameters you set for where and how you want to impact lives, you will always move it farther away as you approach it.

03:00    Our human nature is to take what we’ve done and say, “It’s not good enough!”

03:10    When we do something we set out to do, we deny that it was any good or of any importance, because we’ve already done it.

03:15    We have this idea that for our purpose to be meaningful and to be worthy of celebration, it has to be impossible to achieve, and somehow we must beat the odds – but mainly, it has to be impossible, above all else.

03:30    We believe that we’ll feel a different way about life and about ourselves when we achieve the goal that is our life’s purpose – but the reality is that we will feel how we feel now, but just have done more stuff.

04:20    We hope that achieving our purpose will fill the hole inside that feels unworthy, unsafe, or unsatisfied. When we do something we thought was our mission and we still feel crap, we assume we just haven’t identified our mission yet. The truth is, nothing you DO will fill that hole. The feeling we seek comes from living, not accomplishing.

06:00    I find it difficult to just enjoy the moment – my brain jumps in like, “What about the next moment? What are we supposed to be DOING!?”

06:20    My thought, “What do I need to do next to feel OK about this moment now?” is a symptom of Doing Culture, rather than Being Culture.

06:40    Thought I want to evict: How dare you enjoy your day off and not be thinking about how you’re going to better yourself on Monday!

07:30    What does it mean to stay in alignment and attunement with our mission in life?

07:40    Maybe your existence fulfills the goal of achieving your life’s purpose. Can you be OK if that is true? What would that mean? What do you get to do now?

07:50    One foot in front of the other, even if it’s only a millimeter, is still movement.

08:30    I’m always

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Have you ever thought, “Dear God, by now I should have had this all figured out?” At some point, everyone faces this fear, and I have to tell you – it’s OK to not have it all together, no matter how old you are or what you thought you should have accomplished by now.

Episode Highlights

00:24   Why am I flailing through life? What do I want, and why do I even want it? Shouldn’t I have become an adult by now?

00:40    We all feel this sense of burning shame for not having figured it all out, as though others have and we need to hide our ignorance and inability to function from them.

01:00    We want to know the secret to life because we feel like if we knew it and had it together, we would have an easier time in life and be safer.

02:00    We grow up with a mythic belief in the awesomeness of adulthood, but then we find that adulting is not actually as cool as we anticipated.

02:38    In the same way that your choices expand as you grow up, your responsibilities also expand, whether we want them to or not.

02:50    When we’re teenagers and kids we don’t factor in that we’ll have to give up stuff to get the things we want.

03:30    We are disappointed by our realities, especially when doing our part to get the benefits we wanted so badly turns out to take so much time we don’t get to enjoy those benefits at all.

04:30    I’ve been surprised by how much relief there has been for me when I finally let go of the fantasy that life gets any better than it is right now.

04:40    People resist giving up the fantasy of life becoming easier and better to experience than it is right now because we fear losing hope or losing something good if we only believe in it enough.

05:35    Giving up the expectation that life has some secret level to be achieved lets you have happiness right now instead of after you’ve unlocked the secret level.

06:00    Nobody else has unlocked the secret level to life. It doesn’t exist. It’s a myth. It’s OK to stop searching for it and just enjoy yourself today, I promise.

06:20    Nobody wants to wake up at 2am with their thoughts racing about how they need to try to outsmart life tomorrow.

07:00    This is life as it is right now. What would I like to experience more of within the limits of my current reality?

08:10    Take the pressure off of the unrealistic goal you set when you were twenty and instead focus on how you can maximize your enjoyment of this week. It will feel GREAT.

09:00    Feeling guilty shuts down all your access to inspiration and energy flow. It’s OK to release expectations that are making you feel guilty and bad and allow yourself to be inspired for something new that feels good.

09:15    I don’t want to keep trying if I already feel like I’ve missed the boat. Keeping trying just feels miserable if I believe I’m already too far behind to succeed.

09:30    I’ve found such relief in having a certain amount of pessimism. It lets me accept that trying might not work out and oddly makes me feel better about trying for longer than when I’m optimistic.

10:38    I can’t live a superhero movie every day of my life. Sometimes I just need things to be bearable and predictable and not tha

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Is working hard the virtue it’s cracked up to be or is it damaging us? Conversely, is waiting for situations to feel easy holding us back from what we might accomplish if we only put in some elbow grease?

Episode Highlights

00:39   If you work harder… You’ll get more done… You’ll get better… You’ll be more respected… You’ll get more sympathy…

01:45   There are so many instances in life where working harder will not resolve the issue at all and isn’t even relevant to the situation, yet we still default to thinking if the person in that situation isn’t working hard, then despite the irrelevance of hard work, it’s somehow their fault.

02:18   The counter-movement born in opposition to the edict of “work hard and things will happen for you” is “if it’s meant to happen for you, it will be easy and flow to you.”

02:50   We feel so frustrated and betrayed by life when our hard work doesn’t pay off or things don’t “work out.”

03:05   To feel some relief from our pain, we comfort ourselves by telling ourselves that we should follow our bliss, and we aren’t supposed to work hard at anything that’s meant for us.

03:53   If we just let it all go, everything will flow.

04:00   It’s just as dangerous as overworking to give up all your agency and authority to letting outside circumstances dictate your life.

04:30   When life doesn’t deliver our bliss, we get upset and wonder why the laws of manifestation are broken for us and nothing is happening the way we want it to.

04:40   No matter what we’re disappointed by, we have the tendency to assume that life is working better for everyone else but us and get judgy about it.

05:58   So much frustration and jealousy with others stems from feeling confused and annoyed that things aren’t happening the way we want for ourselves.

06:20   Most of us are not A#1 Experts at loving ourselves.

07:20   A story of life: Some bullshit happens to us and we decide it’s not safe to be here, and we stop loving and accepting ourselves because when we did that we weren’t safe from pain.

07:30   One strategy says, if I work really hard I can figure life out and make it better. The other strategy says, if I can just let this go and not care so much, I can make this better. Both are looking for relief.

08:00   Both the “Work Hard” and the “Let God Handle It” strategies are looking for outside circumstances to change before we allow ourselves to love ourselves.

09:20   There’s so much emotional energy and turbulence around our ability to just be with ourselves as we are.

09:30   It’s ok to be in struggle. It’s ok to want something and not have it yet. It’s OK to get what we want. It’s ok to get it and not want it anymore once we have it. It’s OK. All of it.

09:50   We are nothing if not changeable.

09:58   Whatever we want today, we probably aren’t going to want it the same way tomorrow or next week or ten years from now. We change all the time and so do our desires.

10:10   Don’t get caught in the trap of believing that your worth is caught up in how hard you work towards things or how easy it is for you to get the things you want.

11:25   Even if you’re living a hard life that started hard, and is st

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Our bodies are so incredibly smart and know how to save us from ourselves sometimes. This week we look at the fight, flight, and freeze responses and how they serve us to save our energy and even our lives.

Episode Highlights

01:16   When something scary or bad happens, your brain starts firing neurotransmitters and your body automatically starts to move away from the bad thing.

01:25   It feels like wanting to punch someone in the face, feeling like you can’t sit still, or like you need to run. Everything in your body is calling you to MOVE!

01:30   If you can’t resolve the situation and you’ve been unable to punch, kick, run, or slink away, those neurons keep firing. Your body keeps producing the hormones that make you feel like fighting or escaping.

02:40   Your body will switch its strategy from fight and flight to freeze or faint when it notices that fighting or fleeing haven’t resolved your situation.

02:50   We experience this chemical overload as going numb to the situation, becoming indifferent, apathetic, or too exhausted to care anymore.

03:13   Rather than celebrating how brilliant our bodies are for helping us survive unbearable situations, we instead judge ourselves for not being engaged enough or “effective” enough to make a difference.

04:01   Something hasn’t gone wrong – it’s gone extraordinarily right. Your body is preserving your precious energy so you can use it effectively. Trust yourself in this.

04:50   Animals who have narrowly evaded death don’t suffer. They shake, they leap, they shiver – and then they eat.

06:00   Proactively participating in this release of energy and grounding through touch or eating can help you switch your brain chemistry as it realizes it’s safe now to rest and digest.

07:25   Moving toward pleasure and what we desire is also an innate response that has physical chemistry.

08:17   We can have a tendency to focus more on the negative things that are going on around us than the positive things we could move towards but there are ways to change that!

08:30   The key is to remember that you have something you want and make that real for yourself to get your brain firing the happy pleasure hormones.

08:38   Moving towards joy again is helped greatly by viscerally showing yourself that what you want is reachable and possible. Beginning with something small you already like, have, and appreciate is a great kick-start when your big desire seems impossible and out of reach.

09:00 The same activity, in theory, can be spurred by opposing drives – but one feels much better. Sometimes, we can choose, and choosing can be pleasant.

10:00 Making a list of things you love and that bring you joy can be a huge help when you need a boost to redirect your focus and get your body on board firing happier chemicals.

10:50   Don’t pick activities you do by default, choose thoughts and activities that bring a smile to your face and fill you with emotion.

12:50   Can I put some meaning into the struggle when I keep coming up against failure and resistance? What can I tie to this battle that is meaningful for me and brings me joy so that I have the energy and desire to move through this?

13:20   Can

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I am so thankful for what I learned about myself and the resilience of humanity this year. What have you learned and how have you gained from one of the most challenging times worldwide?

Episode highlights:

01:05   What can we appreciate that we gained even through crappy experiences?

01:32   This year has helped me not take any of my friendships and connections for granted.

03:00   Maybe there isn’t always going to be another time we’re going to get together.

03:40   Being able to relax enough to finally be able to have a party again was such a joy!

03:50   How beautiful it was to have such a simple thing!

05:00   Why would I want to rush through any of these breakfasts? And yet I know I’m going to. Being present is hard.

05:30   Interactions with my daughter over breakfast highlight how contradictory my own desires are and how these opposite impulses are what life is truly made of.

06:06   Recognizing each moment’s qualities no matter what they are leads to contentment.

06:30   There is no arriving – the moments I live will just keep going, and so I go with them.

06:50   There is a relief knowing that there will never be a moment when I reach a complete understanding of life and all within it.

06:53   There is no pinnacle of achievement to speed towards. This pace is fine whether I achieve anything or not.

07:10   All my experiences are fine, whether I am enjoying them or not. I can let them be OK. I can accept them as they are.

09:00   Allowing others to experience their life without me trying to change or fix them has allowed me to have my experiences without trying to change and fix them all the time, too.

09:30   Letting people have their feelings can let you stop filtering their feelings through yours. Their feelings suddenly aren’t about you anymore or a reflection of you.

09:40   So much of what’s going on in the world isn’t about you or me. It just is happening. We don’t have to take it personally, even though we can act to improve life and change it.

10:00   We’re all on the boat of life being tossed in the sea, and nobody knows what’s going on but we’re all doing the best we can. That’s how it’s always been.

10:30   No matter how expanded I feel about other people, I know I’ll only continue to be more impressed with them in another year. There’s so much more to appreciate!

11:30   Everyone lost something or someone over the last year or two. How have you grown with your loss?

11:37   We don’t grow beyond our losses. We incorporate them and we evolve expanding around them. Our losses make us who we are.

12:00   In this moment, can you have compassion for everything that you’ve gone through and everything that you’ve witnessed?

12:40   We don’t have to handle life well in order to get through things. Even if we feel like we’re failing or doing poorly, we are still surviving.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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The experience of being out of your mind with boredom has something lovely to give you in return, but only if you let it do its work and inspire you. Distractions can’t help you gain this!

Episode Highlights

01:00    Witnessing my child’s expectations around boredom illuminates my own experiences with it.

01:32    My kid looks to me for guidance on what to do when we get bored, and all I can tell her is, you just live with it and have to come up with something to do.

01:40    My kid’s expectation is that we should immediately stop what we’re doing, drop everything and FIX IT when she’s bored. Her disappointment when we do not is evident.

02:28    If you constantly have something put in front of you to alleviate boredom, you miss out on the chance to create something new and genuine from your own imagination.

02:40    As an artist, being bored was so important and drove an incredible amount of creativity.

03:58    Boredom calls you to use your senses and reengage with the reality before you.

05:40    My daughter’s illustrations are borne from us allowing her to sit in boredom without anyone trying to make it better. And they reveal such a vivid inner world!

06:40    When you stop trying to fix boredom through distractions, you’re able to come up with cool ideas you haven’t experienced before.

08:00    I want to live a life that I’d enjoy watching on TV – one where I am engaged with my life and not merely watching someone else’s.

08:40    Maybe being bored is a sign that I’m being boring.

11:40    The key to alleviating boredom is to shift your focus outside of yourself, to find curiosity for what’s going on out there and engage with it.

12:00    Boredom is inherently about being self-centered and feeling like your pleasure is the most important aspect of reality right then and you’re not getting that.

14:00    I love being entertained, and I want more of that in my life. How am I going to create it?

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Burnout is so common, and yet it barely gets a glance from most of us until we’re in it – and even then, it can feel like we’re the only ones who experience it. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Episode highlights

01:00 The shame we feel in admitting our stress and mental or emotional pain can cause us to stay silent about it and attempt to work through it on our own.

02:00 Burnout is not just feeling tired or feeling unconnected to something you once loved – it’s feeling guilty and shameful about it, too.

02:30 Not talking about our burnout and overwhelm stigmatizes it and prevents us from getting the support we need to end the situation.

03:31 As human beings we can’t be expected to always give, give, give without ever taking, too.

04:00 Despite wanting to be more authentic and vulnerable, we still have the instinct to prettify even our ugly moments, because that’s what we’ve been consuming our entire lives.

05:55 What sets you up to succeed in pulling yourself out of the pit of burnout is growing the capacity you have to be with your feelings.

07:50 Your mind will try to serve you every distraction it can conjure up to make you feel better when you attempt to sit with an uncomfortable emotion, but indulging the distraction only delays dealing with that feeling.

08:13 Suppressing a feeling or going around it instead of experiencing it contributes to a ton of anxiety, where we spend lots of energy avoiding an unknown enemy and we’re left confused as to why we’re anxious at all.

09:20 We have so many good reasons for avoiding pain and avoiding feeling the yuckier feelings.

09:30 When we interrupt our body’s process of moving through emotions, we keep accumulating incomplete experiences, and this catches up to us and wears us out.

10:00 Accumulated stress pops up when we slow down, which can manifest as trouble sleeping or relaxing.

10:15 When we don’t recognize what’s happening, we interpret anxiousness as having no cause and therefore no remedy.

10:48 When we rationalize that there is no reason for us to feel a certain way, we tend to then deny the emotion because we believe it is invalid.

12:00 Part of the reckoning with our feelings is owning up to the party we played in our lives. There’s a reason we feel like we do, even if we don’t want that to be true.

15:30 Our mind has a lot of hidden expectations that can surprise us when we dig deeper than our surface questions and answers.

15:45 Sometimes the easiest and gentlest approach to burnout is not to ask it to go away, but to ask it why it’s here.

16:40 The emotion we’re most scared of feeling is often much the same as what we’re already feeling anyway, but avoiding it only draws it out longer.

17:56 Emotionally speaking, it’s so important that you recognize that you’re a person in a body who needs to physically feel and express their feelings.

19:20 I don’t know anybody who only has one stuck feeling or one stuck thought. We all have a lot to move, and that’s OK.

20:40 Even as someone trying your best to move through and past your pains, it’s OK to fail, and to feel the same emotions again and again, and to find the same feelings in new or s

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Dandelions seem to have an excellent attitude about life's limitations. Let's talk about resilience and how we can be as tough and ingenious as life's most hardy little flower.

Episode Highlights:

01:30    We adapt to our situations and environment in order to survive, the same way that a dandelion adjusts its bloom height to thrive on a lawn with lawnmowers

01:50    We sometimes judge our adaptations as being failures, like we’ve given up on our ideals, when it’s more like we’ve figured out how to thrive where we are and survive.

02:00    We don’t have to judge our adaptations as making us less – we can choose to see them as beneficial or even necessary, which in many ways, they truly are.

03:00    Choosing to stay in a situation or space opens up one’s options – what will you do to thrive there as it is now? How will you adjust to it? And how will it then adjust to you?

03:50    There’s a reason we like sticking with the devil we know.

04:50    When you’re striving for something and life throws obstacles in your face, what do you do to adjust?

05:30    Every living thing deals with the trials and tribulations of existence, and of striving for a goal and being met with resistance.

05:50    Even wild creatures revise their expectations.

06:20    A dandelion doesn’t immediately grow its flowers 1” above the ground after it is mowed. It tries to be almost as tall as it was before, and then it keeps trying until it finds success.

07:15    Even if they can’t grow nearly as high as they ideally would, dandelions find a way to bloom. What if we can bloom where we are, too?

08:30    Despite my expectations, I do not have my shit together by now. But I still am having my life.

09:50    When you reach your 40’s you start to realize that some of the things you thought would have arrived by now might never be arriving, at least not the way you thought it would.

10:00    Could I just enjoy my experience of life unfolding in a different way than what I anticipated?

11:17    What are our big plans but a bunch of days unfolding one at a time?

11:21    You may get to the end result you desire, or you might not. But if you can enjoy the experiences that get you there, that builds a satisfying life.

12:20    How do you think about your ability to produce another fruit, another lofty result, after your last one falls from the tree?

14:20    What if some of the best things in my life I haven’t even started yet?

15:40    It feels like a relief and a breath of fresh air to believe that lots of important events and people in my life are yet to be met. No matter what’s happening right now, there is more good to come.

18:00    Your life is a string of days, and you can choose to experience them however you want. You get to decide how you approach each day. Why not aim for wonder and curiosity over dismay and fear?

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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There is frustration and anger mothers face for the constant stream of extras we deal with that others typically do not. It forms a constant energy drain that becomes the foundation of our functionality, and at some point, all of us rage at the unfairness of the situation. This episode follows those feels and what we can do to honor the struggle.

Episode Highlights

00:25    I had the thought, if my kid finally goes to school, I’ll finally be able to work!

01:00    You can see the disparity in who we expect to attend to children by looking at the statistics of who gets laid off, fired, or not hired.

01:40    There’s a problem when the system is such that if schools don’t or can’t open, then parents can’t work.

02:20    We recognize now more than ever that we can’t function if we don’t have people and the support structure of community in our lives.

02:53    Having to support a family as just one or two parents alone is crushing, and yet it’s what we’ve asked of our adults today.

03:00    The task of raising a human child to grow into a functional, loving, kind, and productive adult cannot be the work of just one person alone.

03:20    Moms are worried about the wellbeing of everyone in our family, but we put ourselves last on that plate if we even put ourselves on it at all. We are the plate.

04:01    If you had to hire someone or several someones to cover all the work moms do, it would cost a fortune. But because we don’t pay moms for their service or work, we treat it as if it’s not very valuable.

04:30    Don’t ever say to me, “it must be so nice to be a woman of leisure,” when I tell you I am a stay-at-home mom. It’s not leisurely. And you know what? It’s often not so nice, either.

04:50    Have you ever suppressed your murderous rage because you kind of believed the argument that your efforts aren’t enough?

05:40    How do you win when there are no rules in place or the rules keep changing based on the day and who’s asking?

06:50    How is it that I’m doing the best I can, and rather than being appreciated for it, you’re telling me I am failing, and you demand even MORE?

07:30    It’s the frustration of your position being treated as a privilege that’s going to get taken away if you don’t fall in line, but there’s no way you can stand in the line because there are at least seven lines.

08:40    Right now there is an unacceptable amount of stress to just existing that compounds the "usual" unwelcome stresses of existing. Thanks, pandemic!

10:15    The anger is that not only can I not make a dent in this in any meaningful way, but I’m also going to be told it isn’t a problem, as if my pain doesn’t exist because it doesn’t exist for you, or it makes it uncomfortable for you to acknowledge there’s a problem.

11:30    We’ve been cut off from support for so long we feel like we are weak or failing if we reach out and ask for the bare minimum of help and support we need to function.

12:00    We can’t be asked to do 1,000,000 jobs and not even get a, “wow, I see what you’re doing,” without feeling like we’re going to implode.

12:15    The remedy is making meaning for our struggle by fighting for what’s right, raising o

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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As a modern human and woman, what does it mean to embrace my wildness? Am I wild or domesticated, and what does that even mean? I explore that and my feelings about it in this week’s podcast.

Episode Highlights

00:30    When we look at our pet cat and dog, and the birds outside, we believe that they have something we don’t have, and we call it wildness.

01:01    We preface the word “instincts” with “wild,” and feel there’s something magical and mysterious going on there.

01:15    We have the sense that there is something very powerful and intense and desirable about wildness, but most of us shy away from identifying what that is or connecting with it.

01:20    Humans crave connection with the wild part of ourselves, but we get weird about how we embrace it.

01:37    We criticize ourselves for the qualities we identify as being wild, even if we desire more of those qualities in ourselves.

02:10    If I can’t predict what someone’s going to do, that’s scary.

02:50    We have plenty of rules about how we are supposed to be, act, think, and even feel. Rules about what it means to be a good person.

04:05    If I go out and lay in a soggy heap on my lawn, which is what I feel like doing, what will my neighbors think? That’s not acceptable as a civilized person!

04:45    Part of me is intensely jealous of my cat’s ability to lay in inconvenient sunbeams and give zero fucks if it makes it hard for us to walk down the stairs.

05:15    Am I allowed to just lay in a sunbeam because I think that would feel nice right now? That I even question this is proof I’ve lost my wildness.

05:30    It’s the tiny impulses that we squash because we judge them as too ridiculous to pursue, but those small impulses are our wildness calling us to play.

06:01    Faced with my inaction, I come up with a lot of excuses.

06:17    The truth is that I could do things, I am just NOT doing them.

07:09    What are the things that a wild human would do that I am not doing?

07:42    The wild part of myself is the one who wants to kick off all of the made-up responsibilities I feel compelled to enact every day.

08:25    Thumbing through Instagram for an hour every day doesn’t make me feel embodied or great about being human, but skipping with glee over a hill can do that.

08:40    Are we capable of taking a minute to be barefoot and connect with the ground with our bodies without thinking about what it all means?

11:13    I don’t see humanity breaking out of our narrow paths of acceptable behavior very often in ways that are fun and unthreatening, but I want more of that.

11:23    Most of us follow the routine that we built up over the course of our life without ever questioning it or trying something too different.

11:41    There’s no other creature who uses alarm clocks. This tells us a lot about people in comparison to the rest of the natural world.

12:00    The power of our minds and emotions is that we can sabotage ourselves from doing something that comes naturally and make it hard just by thinking about it too much.

13:11    Wild creatures don’t agonize or lament their activities, they just do them and move through

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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Several of my friends have been house shopping this year. Their experiences brought up a lot of buried emotions in me around money, value, and security.

Episode Highlights

00:10    What is the value of anything if not the way we feel about it?

00:43    It’s so interesting how charged the emotions are around money and what we want to buy, no matter what that purchase is.

02:00    Our first house ended upside-down after the 2008 housing market crash, and we spent the next decade paying it down only to sell the house for the same exact price we bought it for in 2005. Ouch.

02:19    When the house lost all that market value, I felt suffocated, as though our amazing, wonderful investment had turned to dust in our mouths and I would cough on it for years.

02:50    If you live in CT, it’s a wonderful time to already have a house because everyone around us is fleeing the cities to come to buy a yard to lounge in. Our houses seem to gain value overnight.

03:40    Because of my experience with our house in 2008, I am apprehensive of any estimate on our current house being so high as if it’s fake money and is a huge lie.

04:35    I personally find financial markets confusing and arbitrary.

05:20    I am not a huge risk-taker in the financial dimension of my life, at least not in the investments and trading areas. It feels like quicksand to me.

05:40    The whole concept of capitalism is putting a monetary number on what we value. If you value it greatly, it costs more or you’re willing to pay more for it, and so prices go up.

06:00    For me, the biggest feeling around money and housing markets is fear that I don’t know what’s going on and so I have no idea how to navigate it.

07:00    Not understanding something means I can’t predict what’s going to happen so I can’t take advantage of it, nor can I protect myself from anything bad that is on the horizon. I am flying blind.

07:30    A house is one of the biggest investments we ever make, and if the house you’re paying for isn’t even worth the money you put into it, how is that even possible?

07:40    Of course. it’s worth everything because it’s my life! It’s me getting up every morning and brushing my teeth, having a spot to sleep, it’s where I gather with friends and family and raise my kids. My home, my house, it’s EVERYTHING.

08:50    Home is safety, it’s me watching my child grow up, it’s where I spend my life, the best moments, and where I comfort myself after the worst ones.

09:40    It infuriates me that someone can get kicked out of their house when it forecloses, and that same house can end up sitting there EMPTY for years and eventually go to ruin. WTF.

11:35    This isn’t Full Spectrum Understanding, it’s Full Spectrum Feeling, and I have a lot of feelings about things that I know I don’t understand!

11:40    I just want people to care about each other. Why can’t we just care about each other more than we care about money?

12:37    I guess what I’m learning is that there’s a lot that I just don’t know… and that’s OK.

14:16    Two years ago there were so many empty houses, where did they all go?

15:11    Do we invest because we are happy and ho

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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The emotional rollercoaster of applying for kindergartens for my kid is way more intense than I anticipated. How have these processes become so complicated?

Episode Highlights

00:30    Coming into 2020 I thought I’d be sending my kid to preschool, but then Covid hit and we had to scrap that plan.

01:11    I’m not going to send my kid to digital preschool, because that’s ridiculous.

01:18    Isn’t the point of preschool and kindergarten to learn how to socialize with your peers and instructors?

01:52    My feelings at first were, “I’ve totally got this!” But how simple it was for me to believe that then!

02:07    There’s been a lot of benefits to having my kid home this year. But there was a part of me feeling like the system has betrayed me and let me down.

02:25    My brain gets so upset when things don’t go to plan and it’s outside of my control.

02:39    The plan was flawed from the very beginning because it relied on humanity to have its shit together!

03:30    Zoom worked well for my kid for the first three months, but as time wore on it was less and less interesting and effective.

04:00    As a parent, I have a deep sadness that my kid lost an entire year of socialization with anyone outside of our household.

05:20    I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’ve never had a kid going to school before, and this whole process is madness.

05:40    How many of us are dealing with the overwhelm of choosing between seven school options for our kids that are different focal tracks starting from pre-k?

06:00    The craziness of so many magnet schools with specialties is that the default public school, by comparison, seems really boring and awful because it doesn’t have an “angle”

07:30    I realized have FOMO on behalf of my child for stuff that she might not even be interested in at all!

07:40    The tradeoff for these amazing schools seems to be the commute time because you have to get them there. So your four hours available to work becomes one after all the driving.

08:35    The magnet school has a special chef. But the regular school I’m pretty sure just has regular volunteers like me making bologna sandwiches. The desire for the chef school is real.

09:10    No pressure, just decide the entire trajectory of your child’s education starting from age 4… and GO!

10:00    You suddenly realize how much you’re basing your decision on what you wanted as a kid and not at all on what your kid wants or cares about.

 12:57   It’s stress level 10 out of nowhere some mornings as I wake up and feel compelled to check my email to see if my kid got into these schools.

13:20    All of this is my own drama. My kid is going to be fine no matter what!

15:12    This is what happens after an entire year of pandemic. The desperation for connection, the absolute need to make sure that things pan out well as though it’s a prize for having made it this far.

If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.

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