Pieces To Wellness

Every so often, it's useful to remind ourselves as well as our listeners (especially any new ones!) what we're all about here at Pieces to Wellness. Our desired impact is three-pronged: Educate. Inspire. Support. Those three things are what we do here every week. The Instigator and the Yogi believe in the power of shared storytelling, the value of lived experience, and the vitality of co...

This week, we're exploring the topic of letting go from a high level perspective. And what's the first thing you have to do to explore? You have to let go of the idea that you already have all the knowledge, experience, control, etc. Only then can you be truly unleashed (Karen's love of that word is another story for another day). This week we're posing as many questions as we&...

One of the persistent themes here on Pieces to Wellness is that healing and health are journeys of change and growth. This means that we are also constantly adjusting, re-evaluating, and adapting to what's going on within and around us. This requires the ability to balance accountability and grace, easier said than done. So of course, we had to dig into the nitty gritty of how this shows up f...

This week we are delighted to welcome Anjali Mehta onto Pieces to Wellness. Like us, Anjali lives in NY's Capital Region, though she works with clients all over the world. Anjali is a Conscious Life & Parenting Coach, Somatic Breathwork Practitioner, and Immersive Meditation Facilitator. We were drawn to her vulnerability, and openness that what she offers is based in her lived experience...

This week we're getting down and dirty with our demons. Often, we hear people talk about fighting their demons. As usual, the Instigator and the Yogi start there and branch out to discuss other less-familiar perspectives. What would it look like to engage our demons in other ways? What are our demons anyway? In his book, Tim describes mental-emotional demons as "brain gremlins". In...

This week's episode has been brought to you in the form of a question from the delightfully curious mind of the Instigator: Is love really all we need? Does love rule? In our usual roundabout way, your favorite dynamic duo dissect the enormous topic of love. We find it to be a huge variable in life and living a healthy lifestyle. It can be a catalyst in many ways. Love can motivate or inspire...

This week, we are honored to welcome Chani Getter to the show. Chani is a renowned psychotherapist, interfaith minister, and author of the book Mapito: Embrace Yourself .  One of the therapeutic modalities Chani uses with clients is IFS, Internal Family Systems, an approach developed by Dick Schwartz. IFS takes an integrative approach to therapy, emphasizing a strong body-mind connection, and the...

This week we're excited to talk about a topic suggested by a listener, "when you have a decision to make or you're trying to understand a situation or experience, how do you know? How and when do intuition, insight, and logic factor in?" Shameless plug: reach out to us through the methods below with ideas related to mental health and lived experience, and we'll talk about...

This week we are beyond honored to welcome Dr. Arielle Schwartz to the show! Get out your notebook, this episode is full of juicy nuggets of wisdom that you won't want to miss! Dr. Schwartz is a distinguished clinical psychologist and world-renowned author of several books spanning topics of trauma recovery, neuroscience, yoga therapy. She is a leading voice in trauma recovery, applied polyva...

This week your favorite duo jumps right in with several familiar metaphors about what to do when the stakes are high. It would be nice if we could just stride along effortlessly, but life is full of obstacles, challenges, opportunities. Not all tools were meant for all jobs. This week we're unpacking what it feels like to try to even figure out which tool to use when you don't know which...

Time for a tune up! These tune up episodes are short and sweet, and are meant to give you quick pieces, little bits of inspiration for everyday life. We use a lot of food analogies and vehicle metaphors here on Pieces to Wellness, and this week we're talking about tuning up our instruments. In this metaphor, our body-mind-self is the instrument, and our lives are songs. We inevitably discuss...

This week we're excited to bring you a conversation with Dr. Jessica Higgins! Dr. Jessica is a psychologist, relationship coach, facilitator, and host of Empowered Relationship Podcast . In her over 25 years of experience working with people therapeutically, she draws from multiple evidence-based modalities and has advanced training in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), which we dig into DEEP...

This week the Instigator and the Yogi dig into a topic brought to us by a listener. This listener asked us to talk about what it's like to move through/past things, people, habits that no longer serve us. In true Pieces to Wellness fashion, this conversation gets messy and vulnerable - just the way we like it. We talk about the challenges that arise when we're at a crossroads, when we ha...

This week you get two Karens for the price of one! That's right, we're delighted to welcome Karen Carey to Pieces to Wellness. She felt like a friend right away, as you'll hear in our conversation. Karen is a life and success coach who recently published a book titled Unbroken - Turning Your Pieces Into Peace and Joy . Karen is a fellow resident of the 518, so it's extra specia...

One of the things we practice here on Pieces to Wellness is bringing our whole selves on the podcast. More often than not, our topic ideas come from our lived experience. That's what you'll hear here today. Karen shares an example in which she recently chose herself instead of abandoning herself, and the dynamic duo walk through strategies you can implement in your own life to move in th...

This week the Instigator and the Yogi dig in to the notion and actions of radical acceptance. Being human is messy. Often uncomfortable. Complicated. We are often tempted to focus only on the things that bring us pleasure, which we mistakenly believe will decrease our suffering. With this kind of bypassing, we miss out on many opportunities to find and achieve those things that are good for our he...

This week the Instigator and the Yogi sit down with Dr. Tracy Foose. Dr. Foose is a psychiatrist that is changing how we look at anxiety. Close to 90% of us experience anxiety, and some of us think it will destroy us. Dr. Foose argues that anxiety is the thing that is actually holding us together and keeping us alive.  Dr. Foose served for 9 years as Director of the Anxiety Disorders Program at UC...

Welcome back! This week, the Instigator and the Yogi follow a touch of inspiration. We came across a quote that said, "When your inner and outer worlds harmonize, your relationships do too," and decided to discuss how this statement relates to mental wellness.  This conversational path took some twists and turns. We talk about many different kinds of relationships, and how important it i...

Dave's got questions! This week, the Instigator and the Yogi share another segment of our ongoing conversation with Dave. Dave is a long-time listener and extra-long-time friend of Karen's whose curiosity is boundless. We're grateful to him for asking provocative questions and swimming with us in these deep waters. Tim opens with a quote from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. It&apo...

Have you ever had a gut feeling? Well, Samantha has, and that same gut feeling has led her on this path.  What path is that? It is the path to heal. That path has brought her to where she is today, teacher by day and an integrative health coach by night.  Samantha thinks that you should listen to your body when it is trying to tell you something. Through her own circumstances she found out that ba...

This week, your favorite duo sits down again with special guest, and friend of the podcast, Dave. Dave's a deep thinker who helps us flip the script, interviewing us about the glamorous experience of podcasting. He asks us about our favorite guests, and we get philosophical about what wellness means to each of us.  Dave drags us out of some tempting rabbit holes in this dialogue, and instead...

This week, Karen and Tim are delighted to share our conversation with Baya Voce.  Baya Voce is a relationship repair expert helping couples come back together after conflict. She holds an MSW from Columbia University, is in ongoing supervision with Esther Perel, and collaborates with Columbia University, MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies), and Rick Doblin on pioneering re...

How do you know if you're winning or losing? This question was the inspiration for this week's episode. We start with our usual exploration of the importance of personalizing what winning and losing look like for you.  The analogy this week is clear: Rocky Balboa. One of the P2W duo (you'll never guess which one!) is a huge Rocky fan. Rocky is the epitome of heart and grit, and his...

This episode is a two-for. You get two episodes for the price of one! This week, the Instigator and the Yogi, and our friend Dave, talk about therapy. First up, the Pieces to Wellness duo dig deep into what we think of therapy. As usual, we're trying to dispel some of the stigma that swirls around therapy, and share about our own personal experiences. We talk about what therapy is and what it...

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? We love analogies here on Pieces to Wellness, and this week's episode is all about digging into wellness as a garden. And yes, this week we're extra full of puns, word play, even nursery rhymes! Plants and humans, all living beings really, have many of the same basic needs. We all need water, sunlight, and nourishing foods. And we ne...