Ever have a New Year resolution you didn’t follow-through on? You’re not alone! “Resolutions” seem to resonate less and less with how people want to enter into the New Year. After all, more resolutions are broken than kept, and that doesn’t feel like a way to enter the New Year with integrity. With traditional resolutions, people often find themselves stuck in the same place year after year – even with having the best of intentions and setting achievable goals that seem totally doable. Goals the...
Dec 17, 2020•15 min•Ep. 32
Today, we talk about adventure and being devoted to it. Adventure is essential to our evolution. When I was a child, I would get soooo bored. I was an only child in a poor neighborhood that had so much gun violence I wasn’t even allowed to play in the front of the house because of all the drive by shootings...let alone walk to a friend’s house. I made a promise to myself that when I grew up, I would never—ever—feel bored again. While this promise ended up creating a full-blown addiction to adven...
Dec 10, 2020•17 min•Ep. 31
Self-image, at its core, is the way you see yourself. By “see” I mean how you interpret and think about yourself – not just the factual way you see yourself but also the opinion that you have of yourself. An important concept to understand is that self-image is totally subjective. It is totally up to YOU. Your opinion about yourself. It isn’t factual. We spend a lot of time being concerned about what other people think of us. We spend way more time trying to control or manage what other people t...
Dec 03, 2020•25 min•Ep. 30
This episode is all about the most common ways I see people misuse thought work and mindfulness. When I coach people on how to self-coach, I get so many clients who are confused about the difference between a) changing your life , b) changing your feelings about your life, c) truly processing your emotions from those original circumstances, even if you’ve already changed them. That last one so important. Because usually, when we try to change the external world and circumstances without first un...
Nov 26, 2020•28 min•Ep. 29
Circumstances are neutral. Another way of saying this? Things are empty of inherent qualities . Today, we’re digging into what a practical application of emptiness looks like in our everyday lives. This concept is really revolutionary in my book. So many buddhist conceptions are (even though they’re often seen as these quiet, calm, benign principles). In Buddha’s time, it was (and still is) revolutionary to accept that suffering comes from our own minds and not something outside of us. In our ti...
Nov 19, 2020•22 min•Ep. 28
I’m going to let you in on a golden nugget of truth that maybe you’ve never heard before: feelings are optional . Yup, you read that right. The ability to feel a full spectrum of contrasted, complex emotions are an inherent and integral part of the human experience – it’s what makes our species who (and what) we are. But we do not have to be at the whim of some emotional rollercoaster. Feelings don’t happen to us. We get to choose how to feel. Try to wrap your head around this. The most fundamen...
Nov 12, 2020•30 min•Ep. 27
Humans go through life thinking that feelings happen TO us. We think, “Ugh I am so stressed out, I wish it would stop!” Oftentimes, we act so confused about where it is coming from. Or we say, “OMG I am so irritable today.” Or in a funk. Or anxious. Or sad...maybe there’s some grieving going on. We feel powerless a lot of the time. Like our emotions can just take over and make us victims of a bad mood. The antidote? Really learning about feelings and how they work; making a concerted effort to l...
Nov 05, 2020•25 min•Ep. 26
In case nobody ever told you: life is about making choices. The ability to choose is an incredible power that we humans have, but it takes some serious skill to be able to use it wisely. Research shows that the average person makes roughly 35,000 remotely conscious choices per day. Assuming that most people spend around seven hours a day sleeping, and therefore choice-free (depending on the type of dreamer you are), that means we make about 2,000 decisions per hour ...or one decision every two s...
Oct 29, 2020•28 min•Ep. 25
The Buddha taught that, to be free, we need to investigate every part of our human experience with an intimate and mindful attention. This includes emotions . Emotions aren’t “bad” in and of themselves. It’s what we do when we feel them – the thoughts that ensue, the actions we take as a result – not the emotion itself, that often causes our suffering. Practicing a mindfulness of emotions helps us to learn about ourselves and our mind. It helps us not get hooked by a difficult feeling, or the bu...
Oct 22, 2020•26 min•Ep. 24
Humans have a great capacity for communication. Yes, animals can communicate in other ways with unique sounds (probably telepathic ways we aren’t able to tune into...), but because of our cerebral cortex, we are capable of communicating complex plans about the future, stories about the past, and lots of amazing, abstract ideas. It’s a real evolutionary gift. But this level of communication can also get us into a lot of trouble. We can really hurt people, or act in ways that aren’t in alignment w...
Oct 15, 2020•21 min•Ep. 23
Can money buy happiness? Many great minds throughout history have tried to answer this age-old question. And I bet you’ve pondered it a time or two... Over the years, there haven’t been any great anwers eithe, leaving many of us still wondering if money can truly buy happiness, and others assuming that it does . As a result, millions of people have bought into the idea that they need to spend their lives chasing wealth as the way to happiness and wellbeing. Which totally works out for capitalism...
Oct 08, 2020•30 min•Ep. 22
What is true success? What is a truly “rich life”? What is a life of true FREEDOM? We all may have our own preconceived notions of what the answers to these questions look like – notions that are subliminally based on societal norms, familial or cultural expectations and the systems of power that order our world. Today, we’re digging into what “living a life of freedom” means to you – and how to move from just imagining this, to making it happen in the here and now. For me and for many of my cli...
Oct 01, 2020•22 min•Ep. 21
At an early stage in our lives, most of us have been taught that we need something outside of us to be happy – the right body, partner, job, car, house, bank account. Then somewhere along the line we also get taught something like, “True happiness comes from within.” And we think we’re totally on board with that. We think, “Right. It’s not stuff that makes me happy – it's things like kindness + compassion that make me happy!” The thing is, none of the above is true. Want to know why? Because whi...
Sep 24, 2020•31 min•Ep. 20
Whether or not you had a childhood marked by conflict, or grew up in an environment of rage, you have likely – at some point in your life – struggled with anger. Even in the closest relationships ( especially in the closest relationships) anger and conflict are inevitable. And so, when they show up it’s not necessarily a bad thing – it’s not a “bad sign” about the relationship, per se, because what anger is most often showing us is that our basic, most fundamental needs are not getting met. In t...
Sep 17, 2020•41 min•Ep. 19
As a life coach, part of my job is helping people develop the tools and skills to be able to do something really crucial to their own long term growth: coach themselves . Yes, I am here as a sounding board, a listener, a co-conspirator and a co-mastermind in helping my clients create the lives they want and deserve, (as a kick in the you-know-what if that’s what they need!) – but I cannot do the work for them. We all have to do our own groundwork to free our minds, so that we can free our lives....
Sep 10, 2020•39 min•Ep. 18
Human brains love black-and-white thinking. Thinking in terms of absolutes: of ‘right or wrong’, of ‘good or bad’, of ‘all or nothing’. With black and white thinking, there’s no tension or resistance – none of the discomfort that comes with cognitive dissonance. Because things are either one way or the other way, and this allows us to settle into the comforting absence of ambiguity – the comfort of being 100 percent convinced that we’re right, or that we are good , or that they’re wrong, or that...
Sep 03, 2020•27 min•Ep. 17
Have you ever noticed that we think we need to control the world, and that – somewhere in the back of our subconscious minds – other people need to behave a certain way so we can feel good? We have so many rules for our relationships that we’ve stopped experiencing them and are locked into the expectations of how the relationship SHOULD be, instead. The secret is this : your relationship with anyone is dependent on your thoughts about them. That means that, in reality, our relationships are simp...
Aug 27, 2020•41 min•Ep. 16
Ever find yourself wishing you could just stop over-drinking? You don’t identify as an alcoholic, per se – your drinking habits may be affecting your body or brain power a bit negatively, but they’re not affecting the lives of others or those you love – and maybe you don’t want to quit cold turkey, you just want to...reign it in a little? I hear you. I’ve been there too. And it ain’t easy. When I quit drinking, so many of my friends changed. When I stopped over-drinking, it made me less easygoin...
Aug 20, 2020•34 min•Ep. 15
Cognitive dissonance . It’s one of those big, fancy scientific terms you may have heard before but only have a vague understanding of what it actually means when you really try to think about it. The official dictionary definition? Cognitive dissonance is “The state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.” But in lay people's terms – and in terms of how to apply this concept to creating a life of freedom, adventu...
Aug 13, 2020•35 min•Ep. 14
So many of us use (or have used) buffering as a way of tolerating things that aren’t acceptable in our lives. We use alcohol to make a boring party more fun. We use food to get rid of that anxious feeling in our stomach when we know our partner will respond with anger when we bring up a difficult topic. We use Netflix to distract ourselves from a stressful job that we hate. What’s underneath this is: you have something in your life that isn’t great, something in your life that doesn’t really wor...
Aug 06, 2020•31 min•Ep. 13
Here’s a golden nugget of truth I’ve learned the hard way throughout my life: the more you have an aversion to discomfort, the more you actually suffer . It’s totally ironic, right? If all you did was stay in fancy places, if all you did was protect yourself from discomfort and everything was always temperature controlled and soft and tasty and nice...the minute shit went wrong, you would have a much stronger reaction to it than if you had practiced being with discomfort and reminded yourself th...
Jul 30, 2020•23 min•Ep. 12
One of the most common issues my clients come to me for coaching on is their tendency to people-please. On the one hand, we can feel good when we do things for other people. This is pure generosity and kindness. But with people-pleasing, doing things for other people is the MAIN source of joy and often comes at the expense of self-love and self-care. And the intention behind it stems from insecurity and fear. When we people please, we are not being authentic and living our truth. People pleasing...
Jul 23, 2020•28 min•Ep. 11
Did you know that the average person makes 35,000 ”remotely conscious” choices per day? If we are spending about seven hours a day sleeping and likely not making decisions (depending on the type of dreamer you are ;), that makes about 2,000 decisions per hour And it may sound like a crazy number, but according to researchers at Cornell University, we make 226.7 decisions each day on just food alone . As time goes on and life gives us more responsibilities, so does the range of choices we’re face...
Jul 16, 2020•32 min•Ep. 10
Think about this for a minute: if you knew – like really knew – you only had a year or a month or however long left to live, how would your mindset change? How many of those inner obstacles currently holding you back would fall away if you truly grasped the impermanent nature of your own life? Because we think we have time, we spend time on habits (mental, physical, and spiritual) that distract us from creating the life we’re meant to live. We allow ourselves to remain in that comfortable cocoon...
Jul 09, 2020•24 min•Ep. 9
You probably think you know what ‘s important to you, right? But in my coaching practice, I’ve found that while most people believe their values are very clear to them, when it comes down to putting words to our values, a lot of people get stuck! That’s totally OK – and to be expected, because not a lot of folks have been given the chance to sit down and consciously reflect on all this. It might seem like a no-brainer, but it takes more conscious effort and commitment than one might think: In or...
Jul 02, 2020•21 min•Ep. 8
Ever have moments where this realization just hits you like a runaway train? “Oh shit, I am not living in alignment with my values right now. How did I end up here?” Yeah. I hear you. I’ve been there. And it can be a pretty stop-you-in-your-tracks, flip-your-world-upside-down kinda moment. Because then the second realization comes: “I’m so fucking unhappy. It’s gonna take so much work to change this.” Then maybe: “I’m not sure I’m up to the task.” If this is you, I’ve got you! I’m with you! And ...
Jun 25, 2020•22 min•Ep. 7
Many people are facing a hard realization right now: “If I don’t learn how to take care of myself, I will burn out. ” It’s true. You cannot dedicate yourself to creating the life you want, contributing to and changing the world… and then ignore your own bodily, mental and spiritual needs. Because that’s what causes self-combustion. And then you’re not helping yourself, let alone anyone else. In reality, it’s a balancing act – in order to show up for others in your fullest capacity, you must firs...
Jun 18, 2020•25 min•Ep. 6
If you’re like most mindful people right now, you are responding to racial injustice and the Black Lives Matter movement and the awakening that has resulted from the murder of George Floyd and those before him - and those after as well. You may be engaging deeply or supporting materially or recommitting yourself to anti-racism work and education for the long-haul. You may have questions, be grappling with how best to take action and show up, or be wondering what true allyship looks like and how ...
Jun 11, 2020•36 min•Ep. 5
As nationwide protests continue to erupt throughout cities small and large in the wake of the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many more, hard and important conversations have taken hold. Conversations about systemic racism and white terrorism. About police brutality and militarized violence. About collective rage pushed to the brink from centuries of oppression in a country that was founded on genocide and slavery, on stolen Indigenous land and on the backs of ...
Jun 04, 2020•20 min•Ep. 4
Past experiences shape who we are. We, humans, spend an incredible amount of time reliving our pasts and forming narratives that, consciously or unconsciously, can begin to dictate how we think of ourselves and how we show up in the world. But the truth is, you likely have some stories about your past that aren't serving you – that are, instead, keeping you from owning who you are NOW and rocking the hell out of this one precious life. Today, we’re going to talk about your past and how to change...
May 28, 2020•26 min•Ep. 3
