Welcome to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. Somewhere in the fast-paced chaos of the modern world we’ve forgotten how to sit on our arse and do nothing. Alpha-athletes, hustle culture and the corporate world tell us that we must constantly push ourselves, that time spent resting is time lost, but it’s left us in a vulnerable place, experiencing burnout and feeling like failures. This is why ...
Mar 27, 2023•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. Is the human brain wired for hate? Is social media to blame for the rise in hateful abuse? In this episode Niall is joined by Professor Matt Williams, who asks these questions in his book ‘The Science Of Hate: How Prejudice Becomes Hate And What We Can Do To Stop It’ Matt speaks to Niall about the hate crime perpetrated on him that influenced his r...
Mar 20, 2023•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. In this episode Niall is joined by Richard V. Reeves, senior research fellow at Brookings Institution and author of ‘Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It’. Following on from our episode ‘The Lost Boys’, Niall speaks to Richard about how men are falling behind in three big areas of life, i...
Mar 13, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. In this episode Niall is joined by Austin Archer, a musician, actor, screenwriter, director, and content creator. Austin has amassed over 1.2 million followers on TikTok where he creates informative videos and hilarious songs about current world issues and politics. Niall and Austin get into the weeds of some divisive topics, discussing how m...
Mar 06, 2023•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. In this episode Niall takes a trip to San Francisco, a place where many Irish people fled to during the Irish Famine in the 1800s, to meet with the Irish Immigration Pastoral Center. Immigration is a fraught subject in Ireland and across the world right now in the midst of the culture wars, but what is happening in the communities that have formed ...
Feb 27, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. In this week’s episode Niall is holding a lens up to stigma, with a focus on mental health stigma. Although there has been positive change in how we see mental health thanks to awareness days and campaigns, we will never fully erode stigma at a personal, public or institutional level until we look at its origins. Niall is joined by Professor ...
Feb 20, 2023•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. Our mind and our body are inherently linked, but often when dealing with our mental wellbeing we forget to think about the body. This is what happened to Niall during his time playing professional rugby, years of repressed and internalised trauma manifested in injuries that ultimately ended his career. Now, when we talk about trauma there is a move...
Feb 13, 2023•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. One of the most impactful moments in Niall’s childhood happened when one of his heroes, Kurt Cobain, died in 1994. An explosive reaction from a Christian brother in school, in a time when suicide was still a cardinal sin in Ireland, was the foundation of his mental health education and the reaction of society at the time created a personal stigma t...
Feb 06, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. In this week's episode, Niall is talking about the brain. Our brain has evolved to act as a defence system, an alarm that’s there to warn you and keep you alive, but in the modern world that system can be overstimulated. We are constantly surrounded by perceived threats that cause us anxiety and overwhelm. Niall is joined by neuroscientist, p...
Jan 30, 2023•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. In this week's episode, Niall looks at a topic he’s wanted to explore for quite some time. Masculinity is a complex subject in today’s world, one that is often accompanied by words like ‘toxic’, ‘crisis’ or ‘fragile’, and that absolutely needs discussion when figures like Andrew Tate try to push a definition of what it means to ‘be a man’. Masculin...
Jan 23, 2023•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. In this week's episode, Niall is joined by friend and former rugby teammate Damian Browne, who recently became the first man to row across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Galway on the West of Ireland. An extreme adventurer, Damian (also known as Auld Stock) has spent his life consumed by a passion and purpose to pursue his human potential. Hav...
Jan 16, 2023•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome back to Where Is My Mind? A podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. In this week's episode, Niall is joined by world-renowned psychologist and author of The Choice, Dr. Edith Eger, a holocaust survivor who's incredible story has inspired hope in millions of people. Edith was just sixteen when she was taken to the heinous death camp of Auschwitz, and experienced one of the worst evils the human race has ever kn...
Jan 09, 2023•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome back to the Where Is My Mind? podcast, a podcast about how we can better look after our heads and our hearts in the head-melty chaos of the modern world. Each week we'll be exploring the beauty, and the beast, that is our minds. In this episode, Niall explains his journey into mindfulness, overcoming the stigma of his own mental health (including an awkward but hilarious miscommunication with his Dad) and the core principles you can use to start your own journey. So lend us y...
Jan 02, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast This meditation is the final meditation in the series accompanying episode 6, and guided by Niall Breslin. The meditation is about recognising the journey we have been on together over the past six weeks, and about getting some valuable perspective on your life at this present moment. It reflects on how finding a way to see this zoomed out version of yourself in the middle of all the chaos can allow you find some peace... and realise how feckin deadly you are. Learn more about your ad choices. V...
Jun 17, 2020•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast The final episode in series one of Where Is My Mind talks about perspective, zooming out, and how meditation helps us reflect on our lives as a bigger picture. Niall meets an astronaut and an artist who reflect on this perspective from the point of view of star gazing and being in outer space, looking back at our lives on the earth below. Stay tuned for series 2 in a few months.... Produced by Niall Breslin and Ciara O’Connor Walsh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adcho...
Jun 17, 2020•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast The lake meditation accompanies episode 5 of Where is my Mind. It is adapted from Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Lake Meditation, and guided by Niall Breslin. Like the mountain meditation, the lake meditation uses nature as a strong visualisation anchor that guides us to present moment awareness. The lakes surface can changes from day to day. It can be calm and clear then choppy and dark. Yet below the surface the lake remains the same. Cradled in the earths crust and teeming with life. A very useful meditati...
Jun 17, 2020•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode explores the importance of mindful communication, looking at how we communicate and how this affects our relationships. Niall explores how building our emotional intelligence and mindfulness practice can help us become much more effective communicators in every aspect of our lives. He also explores what good communication looks like and the challenges of communicating in our rapidly changing world with one of Ireland’s leading communications experts, Eoghan McDermott of the Communic...
Jun 17, 2020•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Compassion Meditation, Guided by Sharon Salzberg A short meditation exploring our relationship with suffering, and bringing an attitude of kindness and compassion to ourselves and our meditation practice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 17, 2020•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode explores the inevitability of suffering in our lives, and how to skilfully deal with it so it’s not as overwhelming; and so we don’t always turn to distraction and avoidance to cope when things go wrong. Niall Breslin talks to Tomi Reichenthal, Holocaust survivor, about recognising and turning towards aversion rather than running from it, and reflecting on the human capacity to live with unimaginable suffering. He also speaks with world-renowned Buddhist writer and teacher Sharon Sa...
Jun 17, 2020•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast This meditation also accompanies episode 3 of Where Is My Mind. Niall Breslin guides you through the mountain meditation, adapted from Jon Kabat Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living. A mountain stands rooted and grounded in its ever-changing conditions and seasons. We humans also endure a never ending stream of changing conditions and life challenges. Our true essential self is also unwavering in the face of the storms and changes of seasons we face as people. The mountain meditation helps us to tap i...
Jun 17, 2020•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 7This meditation accompanies episode 3 of Where Is My Mind. Niall Breslin guides you through a short meditation which is only a couple of minutes long. When your day is hectic, doing this at some point during the day: on the bus on the way home or on your lunch break, can be a great way to bring a mindful practice into your day and help you decompress when you are on the go. Over the series so far, we have learned three meditations as well as this shorter three step breathing space. Over the nex...
Jun 17, 2020•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode of Where Is My Mind uses Jenga as a metaphor for the slings and arrows of our culture that threaten to knock us off balance. It also introduces positive psychology and includes ways of strengthening our internal world to cope with the chaos of our modern world. Keep an eye out in the podcast feed for two bonus accompanying meditations for this episode. Produced by Niall Breslin and Ciara O’Connor Walsh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices See omnystud...
Jun 17, 2020•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast This meditation accompanies episode 2 of Where Is My Mind. Niall Breslin guides you through a sitting meditation, a short reflection which invites you to simply sit and observe your breath, your surroundings, and how you are feeling. We all sit every day, we all breathe; the difference is your awareness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 17, 2020•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of Where Is My Mind, Niall Breslin explores our culture of distraction, and how the perpetual pings, dings and notifications we do battle with every day in the war for our attention can stop us from deepening our attention and make us feel overwhelmed. David O'Brien's brain surgery playlist, The Auditory Cortex is here: https://spoti.fi/2M2VyjH Produced by Niall Breslin and Ciara O’Connor Walsh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices See omnystudio.co...
Jun 17, 2020•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast This meditation accompanies episode 1 of Where Is My Mind. You can do this meditation at any time of day, lying or sitting down. Niall Breslin guides you step by step of the way through this short guided meditation, designed for first time and experienced meditators alike, with the aim of using the body as an anchor to present moment awareness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/...
Jun 17, 2020•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of Where Is My Mind, host Niall Breslin looks at why we end up zoning out and living our lives on autopilot… and explored how we can take back the wheel, be present in the everyday of our lives, and to keep up with pace of modern world. Produced by Niall Breslin and Ciara O’Connor Walsh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 17, 2020•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Where Is My Mind is a podcast series where Niall ‘Bressie’ Breslin talks about the impact our society has on us, and how we can deal with it by introducing the basics of mindfulness practice and meditation... in this series you’ll learn how to get off autopilot, how to navigate constant distraction, how to be a more skillful stress-head, how to focus on the parts of our world that are truly wonderful…. and even how to be deadly at Jenga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com...
Jun 17, 2020•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast