There are valid reasons why we sometimes guard our hearts. Yet when we keep them closed, we diminish our capacity to live life to its fullest. Alexandra Roxo has a gift for helping people “meet the difficult places” within us, to heal and open our hearts and “dare to feel” the emotions that were once too painful or overwhelming.
This episode of Insights at the Edge features Tami Simon in conversation with Alexandra about her new book, Dare to Feel. Inviting us to walk the transformational path of the heart and embrace the totality of our emotional experience, Tami and Alexandra discuss: the emotions of relationship and intimacy; being a warrior of the heart; an overlooked—and wholly avoidable— source of emotional overwhelm; the “spiritual illness” of seeking numbness; the willingness to take risks to nurture and express love, especially with strangers; how contemplative practices help us stay with the full range of our feelings; the intersection of human experience and spiritual experience; pain as a portal to the divine; self-awareness and witness consciousness; emotional resilience and self-trust; practicing feeling; and more.
Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
Women across every age and culture have struggled with the pain of repressing essential aspects of themselves. There may be no misery greater than when we bury our vital spark beneath a dense layer of niceness that society insists upon. With her book The Vital Spark, Lisa Marchiano, a Jungian analyst, author, and podcaster, offers readers a breakthrough guide filled with insights, practices, tales, and teachings to unleash your “sizzling spirit” and live life to the fullest.
Get ready to reclaim your “outlaw energies” in this powerful podcast on: transformation through fierce feminine initiations; the protective quality of shrewdness and ruthlessness; breaking out of an “innocence complex”; allowing ourselves to know what we know; why “too much kindness defangs us”; discernment; the metaphor of the central fire within us; Carl Jung’s teaching on the unlived life and the “glowing coals under gray ashes”; the vehicle of story and fairy tales to convey wisdom; the tale of “Fitcher’s Bird”; squinting and symbolism; the unsentimental quality in nature; the story of Lilith; the role of greed and selfishness in the quest for wholeness; growing confidence; cultivating the qualities that help us stay connected with ourselves; and more.
We live in a wild world with a wealth of information at our fingertips. This means we can read reviews, check forums, and see what other parents are saying about everything we purchase or do for our children.
But that is not always a good thing. There is such a thing as too much research.
I distinctly remember working with a client who had very high expectations around her child’s food. She was concerned with what ingredients were in the food, how it was prepared, how it was served—and anything less than “healthy” felt wrong to her. She was a self-proclaimed perfectionist who wanted the best for her child—she wasn’t going to “lower her standards” at the request of her partner or anyone else.
As a result of her food concerns, she spent hours upon hours extensively researching topics related to food such as GMOs, toxins, ingredients, and safety. Through her research, she also read that stress could decrease her milk supply—so she shut down any conversations when her family tried to approach her about this or how it had taken over her life.
This level of research was no longer about the food—postpartum anxiety was in the driver’s seat, pushing her to search for control.
It’s also important to break away from the idea that there is one “right” way to mother. Just because we have access to information doesn’t mean there isn’t room for nuance. Take “healthy food” as an example. What constitutes a “healthy” diet has been a debated topic for decades and is often a wellness space filled with fads and extremes with each approach contradicting the next. There have been more rules prescribed to our food then I can count that cause people not to trust themselves and leave them seeing food as being good or bad. Food is not black or white. Our approach doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
In my client’s case, research had gone beyond just information-seeking. Sometimes, research is just research. But other times, research is:
Trying to find the “right” or “best” way to do something
Seeking reassurance
Grasping for certainty
Feeding your anxiety
An attempt to soothe your anxiety
I have seen this pattern play out many times with many of my clients. I believe that in many ways intensive mothering prevents us from seeing signs of anxiety. When we interpret perfectionism and the need to avoid mistakes at all costs as being a good mother, we have a lot of pressure to carry. It’s no wonder that so many of us find ourselves in the research rabbit hole.
Does that mean all research is bad? Of course not. But we need to learn the difference between when it’s helping and when it’s not. Researching should be used to provide you with enough information to make an informed decision. It should have boundaries—not be all-consuming.
Excerpt from Releasing the Mother Load: How to Carry Less and Enjoy Motherhood More by Erica Djossa.
Erica Djossa
Erica Djossa is a registered psychotherapist, sought-after maternal mental health specialist, and the founder of wellness company Momwell. Her popular Momwell podcast has over a million downloads. Erica’s a regular contributor to publications like the Toronto Star, Scary Mommy, and Medium, and her insights have been shared by celebrities like Ashley Graham, Nia Long, Christy Turlington, and Adrienne Bosh. She lives in Toronto. For more, visit momwell.com
Do you have a habit you just can’t break no matter how hard you try or how badly you want to? Renowned addiction psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and bestselling author Judson Brewer—or Dr. Jud, as he’s widely known—has helped millions of people find freedom from excessive worry, overeating, cigarette smoking, and many other challenging behaviors. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Jud about his life-changing books—The Craving Mind, Unwinding Anxiety,and most recently, The Hunger Habit—and his compassionate and respectful approach to habit change.
Enjoy this empowering and “aha!-inducing” conversation about breaking the cycle of anxiety; the process of negative reinforcement; fear of the future vs planning for the future; the three elements of a habit loop: trigger, behavior, reward; the pros and cons of distraction; distress tolerance—a survival skill for our times; changing the reward value of a behavior; karma and reinforcement learning; exploring gratification to its end; the brain as a smoke detector; recalibrating the nervous system after trauma; the concept of dependent origination; the superpower of interest curiosity; hedonic hunger vs homeostatic hunger; paying attention to your “pleasure plateau” when it comes to food; awareness as the key ingredient for behavior change; the mantra “What’s this?”; and more.
Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
Busyness, distraction, and stress have all led to the shrinking of the modern mind.
I realize that’s a strange thing to say. Most of us don’t think of our mind as something with space in it, as a thing that can either be big or small, expensive or claustrophobic.
But just think about the last time you felt overwhelmed, stressed, or out of control. Chances are, you might not even have to think that hard. You might be experiencing that state right now as you read these words.
What happens in these moments?
First, our mind wanders. It spins through all sorts of random thoughts about the past and the future. As a result, we lose touch with the direct experience of present time.
Second, we lose perspective. We can’t see the big picture anymore. Instead, it’s like we’re viewing life through a long and narrow tunnel. We become blind to possibility, fixated on problems.
Put these two together and you’ve got the perfect recipe for eradicating space in the mind. The landscape of the mind begins to feel like a calendar jammed with so many meetings, events, and obligations that these neon colored boxes cover-up even the smallest slivers of white space.
So it could be nice for our partner, for our kids, and, mostly, for our ourselves to consider: how can we create more space in the mind?
Here are five tools for creating mental space. If you want to go deeper, check out my new book with Sounds True on the topic called OPEN: Living With an Expansive Mind in a Distracted World.
1. Meditation.
You’ve no doubt heard about all of the scientifically validated benefits of this practice. It reduces stress. It boosts productivity. It enhances focus.
That is all true. But here is the real benefit of meditation: it creates more space in the mind. To get started, try it out for just a few minutes a day. Use an app or guided practice to help you.
2. Movement.
So, maybe you’re not the meditating type. That’s fine. You can still create space in the mind by setting aside time for undistracted movement.
The key word here is “undistracted.” For many of us, exercise and movement have become yet another time where our headspace gets covered over by texts, podcasts, or our favorite Netflix series.
There’s nothing wrong with this. But it can be powerful to leave the earbuds behind every once in a while and allow the mind to rest while you walk, stretch, run, bike, swim, or practice yoga.
3. Relax.
When it comes to creating headspace, we moderns, with our smartphone-flooded, overly-stimulated, minds seem to inevitably encounter a problem: we’re often too stressed, amped, and agitated to open.
Relaxation – calming the nervous system – is perhaps the best way to counter this effect and create more fertile ground for opening. When we relax – the real kind, not the Netflix or TikTok kind – the grip of difficult emotions loosens, the speed of our whirling thoughts slows, and, most important, the sense of space in our mind begins to expand.
How can you relax? Try yoga. Try extended exhale breathing, where you inhale four counts, exhale eight counts. Try yoga nidra. Or, just treat yourself to a nap.
4. See bigger.
When life gets crazy, the mind isn’t the only thing that shrinks. The size of our visual field also gets smaller. Our eyes strain. Our peripheral vision falls out of awareness.
What’s the antidote to this tunnel vision view? See bigger.
Try it right now. With a soft gaze, allow the edges of your visual field to slowly expand. Imagine you’re seeing whatever happens to be in front of you from the top of a vast mountain peak. Now bring this more expansive, panoramic, way of seeing with you for the rest of the day.
5. Do nothing.
Now for the most advanced practice. It’s advanced because it cuts against everything our culture believes in. In a world where everyone is trying desperately to get more done, one of the most radical acts is to not do — to do nothing.
Even just a few minutes of this paradoxical practice can help you experience an expansion of space in the mind.
Lie on the floor or outside on the grass. Close your eyes. Put on your favorite music if you want. Set an alarm for a few minutes so you don’t freak out too much.
Then, stop. Drop the technique. Drop the effort. Just allow yourself to savor this rare experience of doing absolutely nothing.
Nate Klemp, PhD, is a philosopher, writer, and mindfulness entrepreneur. He is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Start Here and the New York Times critics’ pick The 80/80 Marriage. His work has been featured in the LA Times, Psychology Today, the Times of London, and more, and his appearances include Good Morning America and Talks at Google. He’s a cofounder of LifeXT and founding partner at Mindful. For more, visit nateklemp.com or @Nate_Klemp on Instagram.
In a confessional reflection on writing his new book, Becoming Gandhi, acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Perry Garfinkel says, “It was so difficult I almost gave up twice. I thought, ‘I can’t write this book. It’s too big a subject. Who am I to try to become Gandhi?’” Garfinkel persevered, and in this podcast Tami Simon speaks with him about what he discovered along the journey—and how practicing (not perfecting) six universal principles of the Mahatma can transform each one of us.
Tune in to this highly aspirational yet very down-to-earth conversation on the poignance of the human condition and the elixir of laughter; the Tao of Gandhi; satyagraha, an insistence on and holding firm to the truth; considering “how to Gandhi” a situation you’re faced with; the notion of “good enough”; nonviolence in thought, word, and deed; the connection between words and feelings, and the step-by-step process of personal transformation; simplicity; faith as the driver of our moral compass; celibacy and making love; Gandhi’s life as his message—and making peace with his imperfections; and more.
