The symbolic behaviors we perform before, during, and after meaningful events are common across culture and time. Rituals are performed in an array of shapes and forms. At times performed in communal or religious settings; at times involving fixed, repeated sequences of actions, and at other times not.
We use rituals for a variety of reasons, like after experiencing losses or before public speaking, because we believe it increases our confidence and reduces our anxieties.
In the new book The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities Into Soulful Practices, author Casper Ter Kuile explores how we can nourish our souls by transforming common, everyday practices into rituals that can heal what he calls is an “increasing crisis of isolation” and help us feel more connected.
Take a listen to our conversation. If you like the podcast, please consider making a small donation to support the production efforts.
My wife and I have long had a running joke as parents. That is that our main job was to keep our children off of the therapist couch. And if they did find themselves there, it wouldn’t be because of us.
In all seriousness, being a father has been a great joy. There have been up and downs, lessons learned, and hard truths. And despite what the greeting cards say, there are no perfect dads. What’s important is that we recognize the growth opportunities as parents and embrace those opportunities to become better mothers and fathers to our children.
On this episode of the Life in HD podcast, I take the opportunity to have a chat with my daughters about their dad and their experiences being my daughters. I also speak with my own father about his experiences with his father and his retrospective view of having children.
It’s an honest and, sometimes, cringe-worthy exploration of my relationships as a father and son.
Health Coach and Personal Trainer Elizabeth Sherman
Shelter in Place…self isolation…stay at home orders…self-quarantine. No matter what you call it, the reality is that we are homebound for the foreseeable future.
Being confined to home has its advantages – we can isolate ourselves from the dangerous novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19; we are discovering new methods of work productivity; and it’s creating new opportunities to strengthen relationships with friends and family.
But on the down side, being confined to home can lead to a sedentary life-style. Our movements are restricted, we aren’t burning the calories that we would under normal circumstances, and we have access to food all day long.
So how can we stay fit when we are forced to practice social distancing?  I thought this episode of Life in HD (part 3 of the COVID-19 series) would focus on your physical health during the global pandemic.
For help, I turn to life and weight loss coach, Elizabeth Sherman, owner of Total Health by Elizabeth. She is an ACE certified health coach and personal trainer and a Precision Nutrition L1 & L2 certified nutritionist.
Elizabeth tells us that you don’t have to give into the circumstances that keep us confined at home. She advises that you take control of the situation by building a workout routine that you can perform in your own home. She says to lean into a physical routine and healthier eating habits slowly to avoid common pitfalls.
There’s a lot of good advice in this conversation and I hope that you’ll listen and enjoy it. You can find out more about Elizabeth Sherman and her services at Total Health by Elizabeth. While there, check out the awesome exercise librarythat she mentioned on the show.
It’s human to feel stress, especially when our day-to-day lives don’t look or feel the same as they used to. Sometimes stress can lead us to respond in unhelpful ways, like turning to food or alcohol for comfort.
And with Covid-19, stress and anxiety go hand-in-hand. So how do we manage it all? For starters, everyone needs to look after one’s own basic needs to stay mentally healthy in a stressful time.
While the anxiety many people are feeling about Covid-19 can be magnified in those who are most vulnerable to it (adults over 60 and those with underlying conditions) we are all feeling the impact that policies like shelter-in-place are having on our psyche.
On this episode of the podcast, I speak with Licensed Professional Counselor, author, and life coach Katherine Jansen-Byrkit. Katherine received her Masters in Public Health from the University of Washington in 1992 and spend over a decade in public health managing violence prevention and teen health programs.
Katherine published her first book, River to Ocean: Living in the Flow of Wakefulness last year. It reflects the human voyage of finding your way to an awakened self. Press play on the media player to listen to the conversation.
Date night included hard shell crabs and Manhattans.
Tips for Self-Care
Eat healthy foods – make sure that you have food options that don’t weigh you down or cause you to gain weight during a period of inactivity.
Stay physically active – build a daily exercise routine. You don’t need a well equipped home gym. Find some routines on the internet.
Get regular sleep. Keep to your regular sleep routine and avoid over sleeping or not getting enough sleep.
Create a sense of structure and routine in daily life while self-quarantining.
Connect socially with friends and family while maintaining physical distance. Create special moments (like date night) to break up the monotony. Or cocktails with friends via video conferencing.
You’ve been ordered to shelter in place. But for how long? Days? Weeks? Months?Â
So you’ve followed
the herd, bum-rushed the grocery story, gobbled up all the toilet paper, food
and snacks that you could get your hands on in preparation for the long
haul. My guess is, you didn’t have time
to thoughtfully plan out your meals, right?
Not that the other shoppers in the store left you many options.
The memes and jokes
all over social media show American’s concerns with being sedentary for the
immediate future, over-eating and mindless munching to help pass the time of
day. So we’re going to offer some tips
on how to survive the COVID19 shelter in place dilemma and come out on the
other side healthy, happy, and ready to resume your normal life when things
finally get back to normal.
On this episode,
it’s all about making food choices that are good for you.
We had a great conversation on making healthy and conscious choices for building a proper pantry, choosing good processed foods and healthy proteins. We also talk about how our food choices impact the planet and other people around the globe. Take a listen to the conversation by hitting the “play” button on the audio player.
How To Be A Conscious Eater is a great resource for living a healthy, sustainable lifestyle. It cuts through the noise and conflicting information and offers an easy to remember, holistic guide for making smart decisions about food consumption.   No diets, no fads, or hard-fast rules. Just a straightforward way of eating for you, and good for others and the planet.Â
As Sophie reminds us in How To Be A Conscious Eater, keep your eyes on the prize: your general health. Rather than fixating on specific nutrients or trying out strict diets over the short term, the best bet for a lifetime of healthy eating is to enjoy the flavorful and diverse options included in a dietary pattern with lots of evidence behind its long-term health benefits, such as flexitarian eating. Remember as a rule of thumb, most of the healthiest foods don’t have food labels. Keeps this in mind during your next run on the grocery store to stock up on COVID19 survival supplies.
Ever been in a relationship that hit a dry patch? Perhaps you are in one now. One that feels routine and mundane. No matter how much you love your partner or how wonderful you think your relationship is, things can often get a little boring. Healthy, happy relationships exist when partners work to bring out the best in each other. Relationships that are based on mutual respect and admiration. And let’s not forget about fun.
On today’s show, guest Boaz Frankel says sometimes you just have to get a little weird…together. The filmmaker, writer, and talk show host, along with his wife Brooke Barker, author of New York Times bestseller Sad Animal Facts, talks about embracing the eccentricities and weirdness of their personalities and relationship in their co-authored book Let’s Be Weird Together.
Let’s Be Weird Together is a fun book with quirky illustrations. It’s a rare relationship book that captures the rituals and micro universes that couples create together, in a sweet, fun package filled with humor and endearing quirkiness. They discovered that not only do they bring out the best in each other, they also bring out the weirdness too. Click the play button on the player to hear more about Let’s Get Weird Together and my conversation with Boaz Frankel. Be sure to follow the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your audio content.
When we think of trauma, we tend to contextualize it with major traumatic events like the death of a loved one or a violent event. But traumatic events can happen to us on a daily basis and we often fail to recognize when it is impacting us.
If you’ve experienced an extremely stressful or disturbing event that has left you feeling helpless and emotionally out of control, you may have been traumatized. Today’s show will offer ways to identify when we are experiencing trauma and how to effectively combat it. My guest, Franchesca Clemente, is a psychotherapist that shares how to identify when your body is reacting to trauma, and she offers some practical advice on how to work your way through it.
Some of the advice for dealing with stress and trauma discussed in this episode include:
Breathing – breathing excercises can help calm yourself down by changing your focus and reducing your body’s physical reaction to stress.
Exercise – avoid obsessively reliving the traumatic event. Partake in activities that keep your mind occupied like exercise. Take a walk or a run, read a book, or play with your kids.
Professional development, regardless of your position, should be the driving force behind your career aspirations. But in order to advance your career, you need to have a plan. Or you can leave it up to chance. But having a plan is more the more likely path to success.
This episode of the podcast provides some concrete tips on what you should focus on in a good career development plan. I am joined by veteran, award-winning human resource professional, Angela Lee. She is Vice President of Talent Development for a publicly traded mid-cap global manufacturing company. If the last name sounds familiar, she also happens to be my wife. She is one of the brightest people that I know.
In the show, Angela shares the following tips:
Have a plan
Define what success looks like to you
Hoard skills and capabilities
Seek mentors and sponsors
Seek feedback
Create networks and build social capital
Focus on results
Accept lateral moves if they help build skills and capabilities
Know when it’s time to move on
It’s a great conversation and I hope you’ll get something out of it. If you’ve built a successful career and would like to share some tips with others, feel free to leave some comments. I thank you in advance.
In 1968, after several platinum and gold albums, members of the iconic rock group the Beatles found themselves spiritually exhausted. They enjoyed the fame and the riches that came with it but often wondered…”what’s it all for?”
The group sought answers through the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the leader of the Transcendental Meditation movement. They visited the Maharishi’s ashram in India in 1968. The experience had a profound impact on their music. I was super curious about what the search for enlightenment was like, not only for the Beatles, but for tens of thousands of people around the world.
To help me understand the experience, I turn to Susan Shumsky, author of Maharishi and Me: Seeking Enlightenment with the Beatles Guru. Susan was under the tutelage of the Maharishi for 22 years and served on his personal staff for 6. She talks to us about the enlightenment movement and how Transcendentalism is manifested in the Beatles music.
Natasha Scripture – credit Maggie Marguerite Studio
Overcome by emotions at the loss of her father, pressures from a demanding job, and conflicted emotions over failed relationships, author and humanitarian worker Natasha Scripture embarked on a journey to answer the question at the center of her anxiety…What is my purpose? The answer is detailed in her new memoir, Man Fast.
Books, movies, and TV shows often sell the fantasy of finding “Mr Right”. That can be in direct conflict with finding yourself and discovering your purpose in life. Man Fast is a book about a personal journey to self-discovery and self-love. In a culture that prizes finding the right man, Natasha Scripture shares her personal story that demonstrates a better understanding of self and the world around us. It’s a story of her awakening…the art of paying attention…and recognizing the true source of love. And it all started with a fast from the dating game.
“I needed to design a life that was empowering and inspiring and authentic for me and not settle for a partner that didn’t feel right.”
Push play and enjoy the conversation.
Music in this episode is Lonely Satellite by Bio Unit under Creative Commons license.
