60 mindful minutes by Kristen Manieri

Author Cheryl K. Johnson joins us to discuss one of her favorite books, Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman.

Frequent guest John Strelecky joins us to discuss one of his favorite books, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach.

Frequent guest Carrie Contey joins us to discuss one of her favorite books, The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin.

Science tells us that feeling a sense of "home" where we live has huge positive benefits to our health and wellbeing. In her book, This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are, author Melody Warnick explores the place attachment and uncovers ten things we can do to feel more rooted in our lives. She embarks on several projects designed to have her love where she lives, sharing her ups, downs and discoveries in her wonderful book and in this week's episode.

This week we’re joined by author Emily P. Freeman to discuss key insights from her new book, How to Walk Into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away. This is a book for anyone standing at a threshold, trying to discern the how, when, and what of making a change, with peace, confidence, and a whole heart. With particular emphasis on our individual “discerning process,” this conversation offers a roadmap for deciding our next move. 

Chelsey Goodan, author of Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls, wants the world to rethink how we all relate to teenage girls. As a tutor and mentor for the past 16 years, Chelsey has learned that teenage girls feel profoundly misunderstood and alienated. But with the right approach and attitude, parents and other adults can learn to connect with teens and forge a meaningful, open dialogue that expands empathy and understanding. 

Imagine you’ve come to a point in your life that feels like a fork in the road; one direction things stay the same, and in the other, you change things dramatically. For Ben Katt, this “second half” of life can feel like the archetypal hero’s journey, one of leaving what’s comfortable, falling down on the journey toward something new, and then rising. In this episode, Ben shares insights from his book, The Way Home: Discovering the Hero's Journey to Wholeness at Midlife, and how he answered his own call to adventure. 

Gay Hendricks returns for his third visit to 60 Mindful Minutes, this time to share key insights from his new book, Your Big Leap Year: A Year to Manifest Your Next-Level Life. What if 2024 is the year we all eliminate our “Upper Limit Problem” and finally learn to live in our “Genius Zone”? We tackle this question and many more.  

Uncover the transformative power of expanding our minds amidst endless life's stressors and distractions. Nate Klemp, author of Open: Living with an Expansive Mind in a Distracted World, joins us to discuss his experiences discovering how embracing life's fullness leads to sanity, happiness, and a larger, more connected existence. When we learn to open ourselves to life, we embark on a journey to rediscovering wonder and creativity in everyday life.

Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh shares insights from her book, Love by Design, offering a new Emergent Love Model for modern relationships. This revolutionary approach, born from extensive research and global couple insights, identifies six relational ingredients for successful partnerships: attraction, respect, trust, compassion, shared vision, and loving behaviors. The result is a transformative blueprint for cultivating lasting love, surpassing outdated ideals of romantic relationships.

Bonnie Wan, brand strategist and author of The Life Brief: A Playbook for No-Regrets Living, joins us to discuss how we can create a playbook for navigating life’s decisions, crossroads, and curve-balls. Modeled after the creative brief, a tool used by the most innovative companies in the world to unlock clarity and unleash action, The Life Brief carves a path for living with intention and imagination.

Explore the uncharted territories of the mind with Rebecca Martinez, a visionary in psychedelic therapy. In a world where ancient wisdom meets modern healing, this episode delves into the ethical labyrinth of psychedelic use. Martinez, author of the revolutionary Whole Medicine: A Guide to Ethics and Harm-Reduction for Psychedelic Therapy and Plant Medicine Communities, offers a rare glimpse into the future of mental wellness. Discover how these powerful substances are not just altering minds, but reforming therapy itself. Join us for a journey beyond the consciousness, where healing and ethics intertwine in the most fascinating ways.

Over the past decade, therapy has shed its stigma and has become increasingly normalized. By speaking with a trained professional, we can gain the self-awareness necessary to make meaningful changes in the way we feel, think and behave. This week, psychotherapist Dr. Annie Zimmerman shares insights from her book, Your Pocket Therapist: Break Free from Old Patterns and Transform Your Life.  

I recently deisgned a system for tackling my 2024 goals. I call it GrowthMap and I created it to keep me inspired and committed all year long. In this episode, I outline this process for advancing your life, prioritizing what matters, and completing your goals in a systematic way. It’s designed to have you methodically moving forward–growing as a person, bettering yourself and your life–through a step-by-step process that carries you throughout 2024. I’m excited to share this method with you in the hopes that you’ll continue to do what humans are designed to do: grow! 

It's an annual tradition on 60 Mindful Minutes to begin the year with a conversation with bestselling author John Strelecky. His innovative, insightful and inspiring approach to life and how we can live it to the fullest always gives listeners a new lens from which to think about the year ahead. For this episode, we dive into a conversation about how we prioritize, pivot and plan for an unforgettable 2024.

After over a decade of studying mental fortitude, international bestseller, Amy Morin, has unveiled her insights on what couples can do to have healthy, lasting connection. In this week’s episode, we discuss Amy’s newest book, 13 Things Mentally Strong Couples Don't Do, and dive into the habits every couple can cultivate to better their relationship.    

Our finances have an enormous impact on our wellbeing. Whether we’re trying to make ends meet, get out of debt, or saving for home ownership, money can keep us up at night, negatively impact our relationships and cause us to feel very stressed. But what if we had better tools and insights for how we manage our money? Jay Seabrook, founder of Enriched Academy, is on a mission to expand financial literacy. This week we dive into his approach to financial health and wealth.   

What an incredible thing it is that we humans are built from the food we eat. While food has an enormous influence on how we feel, think and behave, we often pay it little mind, choosing instead to mindlessly munch instead of consciously nourish. Author of Clean Food, Messy Life, Jamie Truppi has dedicated her life to the intersection of food and our wellbeing. A functional nutritionist with a master’s degree in science and nutrition, she encourages us to rethink our commitment to how we nourish ourselves and offers actionable insights for reclaiming our lost love affair with food. 

Robert and Kay Lee Fukui, authors of Tandem: The Married Entrepreneurs' Guide for Greater Work-Life Balance, share their insights for how couples can work better together in business and in life. From improving conflict styles and communication skills to creating ways to maintain balance and connection, Robert and Kay Lee offer strategies for staying strong when times are tough. 

Nostalgia plays an interesting role in our lives. While many of us may consider it something we experience as we reflect on our past, this week’s guest sees it as a tool we can use to create our future. In his new book, Past Forward: How Nostalgia Can Help You Live a More Meaningful Life , Clay Routledge, PhD, guides us through a fascinating investigation into an emotion we all experience yet often misunderstand, inviting us to consider how nostalgia can have extraordinary potential to enrich our present―and our future.

Discover the profound connection between nature's rhythms and the way we live our lives with poet Jacqueline Suskin, author of A Year in Practice: Seasonal Rituals and Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression. By synchronizing ourselves with the ever-changing phases of the planet, we can tap into an unending wellspring of imagination, inspiration, and beauty, nurturing our endeavors year-round. When we tune into the world around us, we can learn to live more aligned with the natural ebb and flow of life. 

In a world filled with noise and distractions, tuning into our inner selves can be quite challenging. This week, we explore the concept of emotional awareness with Nataly Kogan, the author of "The Awesome Human Journal: A Toolkit for Every Kind of Day." It turns out that dedicating time to connect with ourselves daily, fostering love, curiosity, and introspection, not only deepens our self-understanding but also empowers us to nurture and guide ourselves effectively.

Liz Kitchens, author of Be Brave. Lose the Beige, joins Kristen for a lively and inspiring episode about how to break free from societal expectations and monotonous living. Discover how to embrace your inner magenta (and lose the beige) at any age, exploring ways to add vibrant colors to your life. We had a blast during this interview, and you'll have just as much fun listening!

Delve into the transformative wisdom of bestselling author Moshe Gersht and his book, "The Three Conditions: How Intention, Joy, and Certainty Will Supercharge Your Life." Gersht challenges the notion of positive thinking alone and introduces a powerful formula for a more fulfilling life. Discover how intention, certainty, and joy play pivotal roles in shaping your authentic self and finding lasting happiness. 

What happens when we step away from our lives for a few hours, days or weeks? Retreating  is one of the best and oldest tools for wellness. It's how we restore and reclaim ourselves. This week, Kristen and her guest, Jim Eastburn (Corporate Director of Transformational Experiences at Canyon Ranch), take a deep dive into all things retreating, including how to design a retreat, the many benefits, and how we can build mini-retreats into the everyday living of our lives.

Homelessness is complicated. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons so many of us have such a hard time looking directly at the issue and the people it impacts. This week, we dive into the book, When We Walk By: Forgotten Humanity, Broken Systems, and the Role We Can Each Play in Ending Homelessness in America with author and social entrepreneur Kevin Adler. We touch on such topics as relational poverty, look at the societal cost of indifference and discuss the potential for evidence-based, people-first, and community-driven solutions that make a difference. 

The decision to take a break from or eliminate alcohol entirely isn’t just about stopping drinking; it’s about creating a new, alcohol-free life. That can feel like a daunting undertaking. But in her book, Simple Ways to Unwind without Alcohol: 50 Tips to Drink Less and Enjoy More, Rebecca E. Williams, PhD, provides a blueprint for how we can take a more holistic approach to life and begin to redesign our habits, pastimes and worklife to feel happy and healthier without alcohol. 

Explore the transformative potential of imagination in this episode with Professor Stephen Aizenstat, author of The Imagination Matrix: How to Access the Greatest Power You Have for Creativity, Connection, and Purpose. Stephen’s book provides a personal path to purposefulness, resourcefulness, and resilience, connecting us each to our own innate creative force, helping us to embrace our role as a seeker, dreamer, and doer. 

We are a connected species, and our innate drive for belonging can be a double-edge sword. It brings us together but it also divides us. In his new book, The Connected Species: How the Evolution of the Human Brain Can Save the World, Mark A. Williams, PhD draws from his over 25 years of research and experience as a professor of cognitive neuroscience to explore the human brain’s specialization for connection and how we can use it to expand our in-group and extend multicultural societies for the good of our planet. 

Unlock the keys to power and leadership in this engaging interview with somatic educator and coach, Pavini Moray. Learn how your body holds the secrets to becoming an inspirational and socially conscious leader in this conversation based on Moray’s new book, How to Hold Power: A Somatic Approach to Becoming a Leader People Love and Respect.

Valerie Cockerell shares insights from her book, Manage Like a Mother: Leadership Lessons Drawn from the Wisdom of Mom, which is designed for anyone who wants to become a better leader, in any arena of their life. Drawing from her parenting experience and decades of corporate experience, Valerie emphasizes skills such as multitasking, conflict resolution, and role modeling that leaders can use to drive success in any setting. 

Author Kris Ferraro discusses key takeaways from her book, "Your Difference is Your Strength," a fearless and joyful guide designed to empower those who've felt like outsiders to celebrate their distinctiveness and harness their individuality in every aspect of life. Renowned for her bestseller "Manifesting," Kris shares real-life examples and practical wisdom to help anyone unleash their full potential.

Writer, speaker and serial entrepreneur Jon Yarian shares his perspective on the things that get in the way of our performance (in life and at work) and the things that cause us to excel and thrive. Sharing a few key concepts from his new book, Spark: 24 Concepts to Ignite, Unstick or Supercharge Your Work Life, Jon challenges conventional business thinking and encourages a radical mindset shift. 

Ximena Vengoechea, an expert in all things rest, takes you on a journey through a treasure trove of relaxation techniques that have stood the test of time. Her new book, Rest Easy: Discover Calm and Abundance through the Radical Power of Rest, covers everything from 

Richard Dixey, PhD, a scientist and lifelong student of Asian philosophy, believes that we don’t have to sit in lotus pose for twenty minutes or more to feel the benefits of meditation. In his new book, Three Minutes a Day: A Fourteen-Week Course to Learn Meditation and Transform Your Life, he introduces a convenient approach to cultivating a daily meditation practice, requiring just three minutes each day. Delving into the creation of our experiences by our senses, their processing in the brain, and the resulting construction of our worldview, Richard explores how we can establish a solid foundation for profound insight in almost no time at all.  

This week we delve into the transformative world of autonomy-supportive parenting with Emily Edlynn, PhD, author of Autonomy-Supportive Parenting: Reduce Parental Burnout and Raise Competent, Confident Children. Drawing from decades of psychological research, Emily explores how to shift from intensive, controlling parenting to empowering our children's independence and confidence. Join us as we  discuss a few real-life parenting dilemmas and explore insights into the importance of fostering autonomy.

Change is inevitable but how we each deal with change is highly variable. In his new book, Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You, author and researcher Brad Stulberg explores how change itself is neutral, and only becomes negative or positive based on how we view it and, more importantly, what we do with it. The latest findings from psychology and cutting-edge neuroscience show us that by developing rugged flexibility, we can successfully adapt to change and navigate the twists and turns of life. 

Melissa Urban knows firsthand that boundaries are the key to feelings of contentment, confidence, and freedom in every area of life. Since launching the mega-bestselling wellness program the Whole30, she has taught millions of people how to establish healthy habits and successfully navigate pushback/pressure by learning to set clear limits that protect our energy, time, and health. Through The Book of Boundaries, Melissa’s latest creation, she demonstrates that boundaries are the key to better mental health, more fulfilling relationships, and a happier, more productive way of life.

We live in a culture that values follow through and abhors quitting. But what is the hidden cost of all the things we never start because we’re afraid we might not follow through? To Becky Blades, the author of Start More Than You Can Finish: A Creative Permission Slip to Unleash Your Best Ideas, the value in acting on our ideas is not measured in grand planned finishes. The value is in each and every start. This week, Becky shares how we can all develop our inner “startistry’ and end the myth that not finishing equals failing. 

Tanya Dalton, author of On Purpose and The Joy of Missing Out, invites you to ask yourself this question: Are you filling your calendar or are you filling your soul? As a productivity expert, Tanya cares a lot about getting things done and achieving goals, but doing so with an unhurried purpose that we each can access when we stay true to our soul's path and design our days on purpose. With simple shifts and innovative strategies, she offers the tools for us to create a more spacious, fulfilling life. 

Remote work exploded over the past two years, and as a result, millions of people now find themselves in the position to ask this life-changing question: If I can work anywhere, where shall I live? This is the inquiry that author Melody Warnick explores in her new book, If You Could Live Anywhere. Along the way she considers the importance of place, cost of living and community but also our leanings towards a nomadic life or living internationally. Warnick helps the “Anywhereist” discover the right place to do their best work but also live their best life. 

With all of its positives and negatives, most people would agree that technology is a mixed bag. However, it’s becoming harder and harder to see technology’s good side when the headlines offer a nonstop stream of all the doom and gloom it causes. This week, we’re joined by Dr. Cori Lathan, author of Inventing the Future: Stories from a Techno-Optimist, to discuss an optimistic perspective on the role technology plays in our lives.

This week we dive into the book, The Learn-It-All Leader: Mindset, Traits and Tools, with its author, Damon Lembi. This is a book about what’s possible when we have the mindset of being a lifelong learner, and it offers ways to encourage and cultivate that mindset, as well as ways to integrate wonder and curiosity into our lives continuously. 

We all need a dose of optimism at times. I’d been yearning to see how I could make a difference and affect some much-needed change in the world. But the stakes feel so high and the problems feel impossibly complicated and far-reaching. Before this interview, I wanted to know: what can I do? And how can I stop feeling so powerless and hopeless? I found the answers to these questions and more inside Take Heart, Take Action: The Transformative Power of Small Acts, Groups, and Gardens by this week’s guest, Trathen Heckman.

“Complete meditation is not about feeling good— it’s about getting real,” writes Andrew Holecek in his book, Reverse Meditation: How to Use Your Pain and Most Difficult Emotions as the Doorway to Inner Freedom. From this lens, meditation intended only to feel good falls short of what’s possible when we tune into and turn toward ourselves. This week’s conversation focuses on reverse meditation, which is a deliberate turning towards difficult thoughts, emotions and physical pain. And with this new perspective, reverse meditation give us the opportunity to relate to our mind instead of from it. 

One of the most challenging things about raising a family is trying to get your kids to listen, make good choices, and do what you need them to do. As a mom of six and a longtime parenting coach, Andee Martineau has cultivated and now teaches a parenting methodology that puts connection ahead of correction. This week, she’ll discuss the key ideas from her book, Connect Method Parenting: How to Get Your Kids to WANT to Listen to You Without the Yelling, Ultimatums, and Bribes. 

Isn't it interesting how we give generations labels? As you may know, Gen Z is defined as anyone born between 1997 and 2012, which means these are the people that are roughly 11 to 26 years of age now. As you give some thought to people you may know in this age group, I wonder what labels or judgments might you have? In his new book, What Would Gen-Z Do?: Everything You Don't Know About Gen-Z But Should, international award-winning author John Schlimm invites you to rethink everything.

Living in an aligned and conscious way sounds good on paper, but how do we actually do this? We live in an often overwhelming world, one that doesn’t offer many opportunities to turn within and connect with ourselves. In I’m Ascending, Now What?, energy and embodiment expert Sydney Campos explores how we can begin to reclaim ourselves and transform our wounds and shadows into your greatest gifts. Perhaps it’s time to see what you’re really made of and experience the infinite possibilities that await when you choose to become the creator of your reality. 

No matter what your relationship with your family looks like today, your family dynamics have a tremendous impact on how you feel about yourself, show up in the world, and relate to others This week I’m joined by Elaine Carney Gibson to discuss her book, Your Family Revealed: A Guide to Decoding the Patterns, Stories, and Belief Systems in Your Family. Beyond being a clear and compelling guide for better helping us each understand family and the subconscious dynamics that can impact us deep into adulthood, this is a book about becoming more aware of where we came from so we can engage our power to change, grow, and create a more meaningful life. 

Lisa Broderick, author of All the Time in the World: Learn to Control Your Experience of Time to Live a Life Without Limitations, shares her insights on how we can use science-based practices for stretching and bending time, thereby changing our experience of time altogether. “Our ability to influence our experience of time is the key to doing what we are here to do. As you liberate yourself from the illusion of time as we know it, you will become a confident creator of your own reality. You have all the time in the world.”

This week I’m joined by Thomas Moore, who is best known for his NYT bestselling book, Care of the Soul, A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life. Thomas recently released his newest book, The Eloquence of Silence: Surprising Wisdom in Tales of Emptiness, which is a book about how we can embrace, even enjoy, emptiness. In a world that encourages us to want more, do more and have more, Thomas’s is a quiet voice that whispers… maybe there’s wisdom in less. Maybe there’s something special, deep, spiritual and meaningful about emptiness. Maybe it has something to teach us. 

This week I’m joined by Dr. Luana Marques, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard University, to discuss her book, Bold Move: A 3-Step Plan to Transform Anxiety into Power. After decades of research, teaching, and clinical practice, Dr. Luana understands anxiety, including the thinking patterns that can leave us feeling tense, anxious, and worried. Bold Move is a book designed to offer tried and tested methods to break out of thinking pattern ruts and fuel the courage to create a more confident and meaningful life. 

So many of us go through a period of feeling completely stuck. But as we’ll learn from today’s guest, it’s not because we’re lazy, crazy, or unmotivated. We’re missing a clear pathway to get back on course. In her new book, The Science of Stuck: Breaking Through Inertia to Find Your Path Forward, Britt Frank offers a research-backed road map for moving forward with purpose, confidence, and freedom

I’m joined this week by George Mumford to talk about his book, Unlocked: Embrace Your Greatness, Find the Flow, Discover Success. George has worked with the elite of elite athletes, including Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Kobe Bryant, and Shaquille O’Neal. What he has discovered is that natural ability wasn’t exclusively what made them great. “What made them so exceptional was that they were what I call unlocked— they were in close touch with that part of themselves that was most truly who they were. That is what allowed them to develop their potential in the way they did.” Today’s conversation is going to do a deep dive into how we can each become unlocked.

This week I met with Vivian Risi to discuss her book 24 Hours Is All It Takes: Daily Habits Guaranteed to Change Your Life. This is a book about the daily essentials… things we could all do every day to kickstart the next steps toward living the life we want to live. And it’s a book filled with ideas, strategies, and tools, especially the ones we can use first thing in the morning so we can all seize the day. 

This week we dive into the book, Profit with Presence: The Twelve Pillars of Mindful Leadership, with its author, Eric Holsapple. This is a book about how we can create workplaces that are anchored in mindful presence, peace of mind, and gratitude, without sacrificing profits or performance. In fact, Eric would argue that mindfulness is not only a path to personal success, it’s a sound business strategy.

Imagine what could be possible if we intentionally engaged with our spiritual side on a regular basis? Bill Philipps, author of Soul Searching: Tune In to Spirit and Awaken Your Inner Wisdom, has spent a lifetime learning how to tap into the human guidance system and direct energy with intention. He encourages us to not only tune into our intention and energy, but also become skillful at surrender and knowing that we are the creators of our lives. 

It’s easy to miss something you’re not looking for. Psychologists call this inattentional blindness: the failure to notice something right in front of you because other attention-demanding tasks are at hand. This week, my guest is Paul Angone, author of Listen to Your Day: The Life-Changing Practice of Paying Attention. Paul argues that inattentional blindness sums up the day-to-day of most of our lives. We’re missing important things, including revelations, ideas, and truths, that are walking right in front of us because we aren’t actually looking for them.

Belonging, as research shows us, is a key determinant of our health. It gives us a sense of safety, and it gives our lives meaning and purpose. Without it we feel lost, alone, depressed, even worthless. As you’ll hear in this week’s conversation with Lisa Kentgen, author of The Practice of Belonging, we can build belonging into our lives with intention using the six lessons Lisa learned during her studies into belonging around the world.

What is “woman” if not mother? This is one of the many thought-provoking questions Ruby Warrington asks in her book, Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood. This is a book designed to confront the ways we normalize women as mothers and stigmatize women who don’t have children. It takes on the stubbornly taboo topic of women without children, and offers a timely and brave reframing of what it means not to be a mom, instead of continuing to paint women without kids as “sad, self-obsessed, or somehow dysfunctional.”

Few of us will get through this lifetime without going through at least one major upheaval, a time when life feels completely upside down. Whether the upheaval comes in the form of a world-shaking event or something as intimate as a broken relationship, medical emergency, or personal loss, we can be left feeling completely untethered. In her book, In Deep Shift: Riding the Waves of Change to Find Peace, Fulfillment, and Freedom, author Valarie Gangus explores the idea that our most turbulent moments are actually the gateways to expanding our consciousness. We can begin a process that forces us to wake up, transform, and come home to our true selves.

Saving our planet and averting a climate disaster seem increasingly challenging, even impossible. But this week’s guest believes that hope and heart are the answer. In his book collaboration with His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Patrick McDonneLl proposes a compassionate revolution and encourages us to see that real change in the world will only come from a change of heart. Join us this week as we discuss the book, Heart to Heart: A Conversation on Love and Hope for Our Precious Planet. 

There are many doorways into our mindful selves. Some use meditation, some use running. This week’s guest uses creativity. In her new book, Creating Stillness: Mindful Art Practices and Stories for Navigating Anxiety, Stress, and Fear, Rachel Rose explores how we can use our creative selves as a way to focus and steady the mind,  create inner knowing, and cultivate peace. 

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to feel steady and confident in your parenting? Do you ever think about how to truly savor these precious years with your growing people? And, perhaps most importantly, do you dream of creating connected relationships that endure beyond childhood? This week, we connect with Carrie Contey, who has spent the last two decades guiding, supporting and inspiring parents to know and trust themselves, deeply. And as a result, there are thousands of parents all over the world who feel skillfully equipped, personally fulfilled, and authentically connected with their people in all phases of development. 

Reflect back on the last hour of your thinking and consider how many of those thoughts you created on purpose. If you’re like most of us, you’ll likely see that much of your thinking gets produced without your direction, and often outside of your awareness. This week, Thomas Sterner shares insights from his book, It’s Just a Thought: Emotional Freedom through Deliberate Thinking. Throughout his career, Thomas has been exploring methods for thinking, rather than being thought. What he’s learned is that directing our thoughts, instead of being directed by them, is not only possible, it’s transformative. 

Mental health counselor and author of Designing Healthy Boundaries: A Guide to Embracing Self-Love, Building Better Boundaries, and Protecting Your Peace, Shainna Ali returns to 60 Mindful Minutes to discuss what it means to experience healthy love. What does it look and feel like? How do we find it? How do we nourish it? 

Whether we're aware of it or not, most of us spend a lot of time in our thoughts and use our minds to navigate the world. For Sarah Blondin, there's another layer to living, a dimension we're missing when we forget to turn towards our hearts to connect with ourselves and the world around us. In her book, Heart Minded: How to Hold Yourself and Others in Love, she invites readers to come home to themselves and uses centering practices to help us return to a place of groundedness and connection to a deep knowing within.

Suck it up. Stuff it down. For many men, this is the extent of their emotional education. In his new book, Men's Work: A Practical Guide to Face Your Darkness, End Self-Sabotage, and Find Freedom, Connor Beaton asks: Where is the modern-day strength training for the hearts and minds of men? Offering a tactical, self-led guide for men to explore their inner world, Connor blazes a new trail of facing fear, self-sabotage, anger and anxiety head on in order to find liberation from the limiting thoughts, emotions, and patterns men often face. 

Most of us can relate to being addicted to something at some point in our lives, and can remember the oh so familiar negative cycle of succumbing to our addictions, feeling shame and regret, making new attempts and commitments for change, and then possibly failing again and again. This week, we welcome Rebecca Williams to share insights from her book, The Gift of Recovery: 52 Mindful Ways to Live Joyfully Beyond Addiction, which is all about  creating in-the-moment mindfulness skills that give us the tools we need to navigate this cycle, and to transcend it completely.

Imagine you’ve got a glass jar filled with sugar on your kitchen counter. You are the jar, and the sugar is your energy. This week we connect with author Yasmine Cheyenne about her book, The Sugar Jar Create Boundaries, Embrace Self-Healing, and Enjoy the Sweet Things in Life. This book is about how we can get an accurate gauge of how much is in the sugar jar (how resourced we are). It’s about identifying what depletes us and what restores us so we can spend our sugar more effectively and more in line with who we are and what we need. 

This week we connect with Becky Volmer, author of the brand new book, You Are Not Stuck: How Soul-Guided Choices Transform Fear into Freedom This is a book about action. Who doesn’t feel stuck sometimes? Sometimes it’s in our jobs, our relationships, sometimes it can feel like our whole life feels stuck. Any time we feel like we can’t see better options, or we’re just not clear, or things just don’t seem to be turning out, we can become immobilized. You Are Not Stuck is about making bold choices that can sometime looks like an audacious leap; more often, though, it is a series of small, deliberate actions based on personal values that yield more clarity, alignment, and, ultimately, long-term contentment.

John Strelecky, #1 bestselling inspirational author, returns for his fifth visit to 60 Mindful Minutes. An annual tradition, we kick off every year with a conversation with John. This year we discuss how to create more meaning and find more purpose for 2023. 

There is so much more to our breathing than simply our automatic inhales and exhales. In fact, our breathing has an immense hidden power to change the way we think and feel. This week I’m joined by Stuart Sandeman, breath coach, founder of Breathpod and author of Breathe In, Breathe Out: Restore Your Health, Reset Your Mind and Find Happiness Through Breathwork. Our breathing impacts our sleep, stress and how we manage pain. It has potential to help us focus better, perform better and connect more deeply with ourselves, others and the world around us. We just need to begin leveraging the power of the breath, which is simple but not always easy. 

If you’re struggling to make sense of the role technology plays in our lives, you’re not alone. Many of us are asking questions about boundaries and privacy, but also deeper questions about the purpose digital media has in our lives, and the costs and benefits of its presence. This week, we dive into questions about our digital lives with Bob Hutchins and Jenny Back, authors of Our Digital Soul: Collective Anxiety, Media Trauma and A Path Toward Recovery. 

What does it mean to be in touch with the heart of who we are? That question is at the core of The Heart of Who We Are. Written by Caverly Morgan, a meditation teacher, author, speaker, and nonprofit founder, the book offers a pathway to contemplate such topics as our interconnectedness, our beingness, and the things that get in the way of us feeling whole and complete. This week we look at how awareness practices and contemplative technologies can transform our understanding of ourselves and the world.

This week I’m joined by Seth J. Gillihan, PhD, a licensed psychologist specializing in mindfulness-centered cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The focus of our conversation is on fostering patterns of thought that serve us well and encourage us to behave in ways that meet our goals. We will be discussing Seth’s new book, Mindful Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Simple Path to Healing, Hope, and Peace, and exploring how we can all have more peace in our minds.

Tara Schuster had a rough childhood. By her mid-twenties, she was checking all the boxes on the outside but she was falling apart on the inside. Once she hit rock bottom, she began the process of rebuilding herself, essentially giving herself the parenting she’d never received, in order to start becoming the person she wanted to be. Her story and her process line the pages of her runaway hit, Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies, where she shares all the ways she learned to put herself back together.  

Any number of things can come along to mess up the order we create and topple our well-built boundaries. Such is life. The trick is to have an early warning system that sets off alarms long before we hit overwhelm. In the early 1900s, miners used to keep caged canaries with them to warn them if dangerous gases, such as carbon monoxide, reached lethal levels. If the canary keeled over, it was time to evacuate. What is the canary in your coal mine?

Melissa Urban knows firsthand that boundaries are the key to feelings of contentment, confidence, and freedom in every area of life. Since launching the mega-bestselling wellness program the Whole30, she has taught millions of people how to establish healthy habits and successfully navigate pushback/pressure by learning to set clear limits that protect our energy, time, and health. Through The Book of Boundaries, Melissa’s latest creation, she demonstrates that boundaries are the key to better mental health, more fulfilling relationships, and a happier, more productive way of life.

Feelings of overwhelm often directly correlate with being over capacity. We have too much on our plates. How did it all get on your plate in the first place? Some of it, of course, just ended up there because it’s part of the job. But some of the things on your plate you actually signed up for. Someone asked and you said “yes.” Today we’ll look at why you said “yes” and how to say “no” more often. 

We live in a culture that values follow through and abhors quitting. But what is the hidden cost of all the things we never start because we’re afraid we might not follow through? To Becky Blades, the author of Start More Than You Can Finish: A Creative Permission Slip to Unleash Your Best Ideas, the value in acting on our ideas is not measured in grand planned finishes. The value is in each and every start. This week, Becky shares how we can all develop our inner “startistry’ and end the myth that not finishing equals failing.

It can’t all matter. There’s got to be a way to rank everything that’s important in your life and identify the things that really aren’t. This week I’m going to share some insights from five different authors about how to do less.  

For those who work and also parent, it’s not uncommon to feel like you’re floundering at both. This is exactly how psychology professor and family therapist Yael Schonbrun felt when her two worlds of work and parenting collided. As she navigated her way through it, she learned some practical strategies from clinical psychology and social science to help her balance all of the meaningful roles in her life. In her new book, Work, Parent, Thrive, she shares how we can shift our experience with an inside-out approach to solving the working parent dilemma.

Today is the first of a four-part series on overwhelm. With the holidays coming and the end of the year in our sight, this is the season for feeling completely overloaded. I thought I would share some insights and strategies to help you make it through, peacefully ad gracefully. This is part one, which is all about understanding our true capacity.

The chatter in our brains has a direct impact on how we feel and what we do. As Kristen Helmstetter began to tune into her self-talk, she realized she could take her ability to talk to herself and turn it into a force for good. Her discoveries and practices have made their way into ten books about self-talk, including Coffee Self-Talk: 5 Minutes a Day to Start Living Your Magical Life, which is the topic of this week’s interview.

Title: EP211: Get to Know Your Neighbors

As an esteemed veterinary oncologist with nearly two decades of experience, Dr. Renee Alsarraf knew a lot about treating cancer, healing, and grief. Then she was given her own cancer diagnosis and she learned that our furry, four-legged, slobbering animals have so much to teach us about healing, positivity and unconditional love. Renee turned her experiences into the heartwarming book, Sit, Stay, Heal: What Dogs Can Teach Us About Living Well, where she shares life lessons about perfect dogs and their imperfect humans.

Being present in the body is a homecoming, a re-inhabiting, an opportunity to return to and reengage with ourselves. Attuning to the present moment, most often through our bodily senses, we experience the delight and beauty of being alive.

With all of its noise and distraction, this world we live in isn’t really designed for regular personal reflection. And yet, it’s in the quiet moments with ourselves that we come to listen to our thoughts, get to know who we are, and tap into our innate wisdom. In his new book, How Am I Doing?: 40 Conversations to Have with Yourself, writer and therapist Corey Yeager explores how we can use intentional conversations with ourselves to develop more trust, connection, clarity and confidence. This week we explore some of these conversations.

Here’s the magic of the mind: when we pay attention, we have the wonderful capacity to both think our thoughts AND witness ourselves thinking them. We are the thinker and the watcher all at once, which means when the uninvited memories and unwelcome worries arrive, we can notice that they’re there. This awareness allows us to (eventually) work around the land mines or render them harmless. It’s simple but not always easy, so I’ll share some practices I use to tame my mind. 

Tanya Dalton, author of On Purpose and The Joy of Missing Out, invites you to ask yourself this question: Are you filling your calendar or are you filling your soul? As a productivity expert, Tanya cares a lot about getting things done and achieving goals, but doing so with an unhurried purpose that we each can access when we stay true to our soul's path and design our days on purpose. With simple shifts and innovative strategies, she offers the tools for us to create a more spacious, fulfilling life.

By slogging away at work, trying to cross off everything on an infinitely endless to-do list, are we really enriched by our work in the world? We lose ourselves in our doing. We create stress and lose access to the present, which is where we find our creativity, wisdom and intuition.

The hustle to overachieve at work and at home--all in the hopes that we can “crush it” until we finally feel fulfilled--leaves many of us feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. In her new book, Soul Solution, author and coach Vanessa Loder explores how we can recover our joy by creating our own road map for living instead of following the one that’s been handed to us. By doing things like “following our energetic breadcrumbs” and creating micro-moments of change, we can tap into our intuitive soul power to create a life filled with meaning and joy.

What if at the outset of any new endeavor—a new job, a new hobby, a new book—we gave ourselves permission to just try? What if we remember going in that we can always change our minds, that trying is just trying, not committing? I think we all need to fill our lives with more no-strings-attached tries. This week I share some ways to do just that.

While it largely goes unexamined, we each have a relationship with food. Our thoughts and beliefs around what and why we eat forms the bedrock for how we nourish ourselves and, as a result, how we feel in our bodies and in our lives. This week I’m joined by Functional Nutritionist Sarah Geha for a conversation about our challenged relationship with food and eating, and ways we can rethink and rebuild this relationship.

We hear a lot about mindfulness these days. In fact, I think we hear about it so much that we might have lost sight of what it actually is and what it’s actually for. Mindfulness is about being present, but it’s really about who we are being in the present when we consciously direct and choose how we want to show up in the world.