Building Resilience

As we enter a new year, it's a great time to reflect. How was your 2021? Did you accomplish what you wanted to accomplish? One way I like to look forward is by using a word as an intention for the coming year. Sometimes I reuse words, (which may seem a bit boring, but it works!) but for 2022 I've decided to use the word "remember. Join me as I discuss why I chose the word and lay out a framework w...

The end of the year feels like a fantastic fresh start to many—so it has a lot of people (including myself) thinking about the future. Sometimes, though, thinking about the future can bring up some anxiety about the unknown. But what if there was a person who could help you through these uncertainties? What if they could make you feel better about how things are going to turn out? And what if I to...

The holidays! The season of joy and family—for some of us. For others, it can also add shades of stress, anxiety, grief, and more. That's why this week, I'm giving you what is essentially a holiday survival guide! I've got some tips that will not only help you survive the holidays, they'll help you thrive (sound familiar?)! Learn how to turn old anxieties into things you don't think twice about, a...

It's the holiday season, and nothing says "holidays" more than "traditions". It can sometimes be hard to pinpoint the exact origin of a holiday tradition. But what if I told you that intentionally starting a new tradition can be meaningful, impactful, and help you enjoy the holidays more (your family too!)? Today, we're talking traditions: how can you create meaningful traditions that your family...

Tapping/EFT/Emotional Freedom Technique. None of them are particularly catchy names, but the concept is exciting and different—and it looks like science is backing it up as well! If you haven't heard of tapping/EFT therapy, today we're going to chat all about it. Have you ever struggled with meditation? Does your mind wander endlessly when you're trying to focus? You aren't the only one—I went thr...

This week, as most of you know, is Thanksgiving for my American friends (Happy Thanksgiving to all of you). I thought since that is the case, we could take some time to revisit the topic of Gratitude. Gratitude isn't just saying "thanks"—it's so much more. I'd go as far as to say that it's vital to our mental health! It's also not just something to do, it's something we can continuously get better...

The phrase "I don't know" is a tricky one. It can both be something that's okay to admit, and a sneaky phrase that ends up being an avoidance mechanism. Today, we're going to explore three things that you can do to override the sneaky thought of the cop-out and excuse of "I don't know". Learn some strategies (like writing) to help you discover the things you're feeling. Visit me on my Facebook pag...

Today I've got the privilege of interviewing Betsy Jensen—a body and mind life coach. She helps people connect with their bodies and heal their chronic pain, while teaching neuroscience principles and current research on chronic pain. She uses proven strategies to calm the nervous system and rewire the brain to produce less pain. You can listen to her podcast, Unstoppable Body and Mind here: https...

This is a big episode—I am flying solo. As of October 1st, Heather and I decided to close up shop on H & L life coaching and head our separate ways. However, I am excited to take over the podcast and to continue to bring you all the things that will help you create the life that you want. The podcast will continue just as it has—there's just a lot more Leah! Because of this, I thought that lif...

When we think about future self and all of the goals we want to achieve, we tend to look at the end goal, not so much the journey. Unfortunately for us, delayed gratification doesn't tend to come naturally. Focusing on the finish line means that we don't always achieve the results we want because we can get in our own way. But building a habit is exactly that— building. The tiny changes we ma...

Meditation is a topic that every life coach and wellness expert talks about. But it's so much more than just "ohm" and "ah"—it's a way to teach our mind and body to heal itself. We've all heard so much about what meditation is, but what are the benefits? And how can a beginner just "release" stress and discomfort? To explore these questions and more on the rich topic of meditation, we are joined b...

It seems as if some people don't think that anything is their responsibility and they have all kinds of excuses—why they can't change things that affect their life negatively. People say things like "I couldn't help it" and "It isn't my fault", but what that really does is it tries to eliminate responsibility. Today we talk about the concept of "100% Responsibility and 0% Excuses"—it may sound har...

So many things in this life are learned from trial and error—even something like walking! However, our parents didn't get mad because we fell down while learning—can you imagine? On the contrary! They expect a baby to be a little shaky and they're definitely going to fall. This is a basic human concept called "anti-fragility"—getting up when we fall and trying again, and recognizing that's part of...

Some feelings we feel day-to-day are useful. Some not so much. And some can be actively desctructive. Today we're talking about a concept that everyone reading this will be familiar with—and that is shame. It's that voice which says words such as "I am not lovable", or "I'm not good enough". Shame causes people to feel trapped, powerless and isolated.  In today's episode, we want to discuss w...

Money! We all use it. We all earn it. But talking about it? That's another story. Molly Claire was one of those people—but one day, she realized that her beliefs about money were not only hers alone, she realized that her own thoughts were part of what was limiting her. On this week's episode of Building Resilience, we talk about money beliefs (we all have them!). What are your money beliefs? How...

Today we are lucky enough to have Holly Bertone, PMP, CNHP as our guest—#1 Amazon bestselling author of the book  Thriving in the Workplace with Autoimmune Disease: Know Your Rights, Resolve Conflict, and Reduce Stress ,  the first book ever to educate others on Autoimmune Disease as a legal disability in the U.S. workplace. Holly is currently the President and CEO of Pink Fortitude, LLC...

How you process information. Problem solving. Reasoning. How you accomplish your goals. These are all cognitive skills. They impact our language skills, how we read, how we write, how we understand information we hear and how we express ourselves through speech. When people say they're having a hard time reading, they may actually be struggling with focus or concentration, or retaining the informa...

10-10-10. Three numbers, but also a life tool to help you make decisions differently and proactively—by deliberately considering their consequences in the immediate present, the near term and the distant future. Should I quit my job? Should I end this relationship? Should I buy this house? Should I skip this meeting? Should I go to the party? How will this decision affect me in 10 minutes? 10 mont...

Everybody loves some good alliteration and abbreviation, which is why we've brought you today's episode—The 3 P's! These three "p" words (personalization, permanence, and pervasiveness), are a quick shorthand from Dr. Martin Seligman (the father of positive psychology) for today's subject. We're going to talk about protective factors—mental strategies to help insulate our minds, to help us build r...

In our last episode, we talked about six different mind traps—this week, we'll talk about even more (there's a reason we had to split this topic into two episodes!). Learning to identify what these mind traps are is like being a defensive driver. If you learn what signs make a road dangerous, you can largely avoid pot holes because you know what to look for. In this episode, we share some personal...

SNAP! Just like a mouse trap, a thinking trap lures us in and before we know anything is wrong, Recognizing these mental pitfalls is so important that we are going to have to split this over two episodes. Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatté introduced four tenets to resilience which we're going to talk about today: 1) life change is possible, 2) thinking, 3) tunnel vision, and 4) fortune telling. Thes...

If you've been listening to us long enough, you'll see that we are constantly saying our thoughts are 100%. Sometimes it doesn't feel that way— because when we think a thought over and over again, it becomes a belief which actually starts to feel like a fact. It is true and there's nothing we can do about it. Appearing in our mind. What also happens is sometimes our brain. Be efficient. We'll thin...

When it comes to your emotional and mental health, it can be hard to even know where to begin to improve. It's so hard to even tell where you currently are—much less where you should be heading. Luckily, there's a way to help map that out. What if we told you there was a 56 item test that can help you get a snapshot of your resilience in distinct areas? But what exactly is the resilience quotient?...

On today's podcast, we're going to be talking about grief. We couldn't pick someone better to talk about it than Krista St-Germain! She is a Master Certified Life Coach, grief expert, widow, mom and host of The Widowed Mom Podcast. When her husband was killed by a drunk driver in 2016, Krista’s life was completely and unexpectedly flipped upside down. After therapy helped her unfurl from the fetal...

 Mindfulness and meditation are two words thrown a lot in the world of mental health. But the question is, how are they different? Simply put, meditation is focusing on nothing and mindfulness is focusing on something (that's an oversimplification, but it's a good start) Studies have shown that both mindfulness and meditation can lower stress, and even help your sleep (did we mention it's fre...