The Calming Ground Podcast

In a time when so much feels uncertain - perhaps both personally and collectively - how do we stay grounded without turning away from what’s hard? In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun shares reflections where a simple practice - pausing together in community for fifteen minutes each day - created surprising and meaningful shifts. From composing music from the heart instead of “shoulds,” to savor...

In January, our society tends to tell us to do more, fix ourselves, and start over… but what if the most powerful way to begin the year is actually through mindfulness?  In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun offers a different starting point for the new year - one rooted in mindfulness, nervous system awareness, and compassionate intention-setting. Elizabeth unpacks what mindfulness really i...

What if the longer periods of darkness during winter could be our teacher?  In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun reflects on stillness, renewal, and possibility during late December. Drawing from timeless wisdom - the Northern European tradition of the Twelve Nights and the Inuit story of Sedna’s descent into the deep - Elizabeth explores how darkness, pause, and reflection are essential pa...

What if peace in your life, and peace in the world, begins with the smallest shifts inside of you?   In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun weaves together two timeless folktales, the Taoist story of the Useless Tree and the Cherokee legend of the Two Wolves. Together, these stories illuminate how slowing down, regulating our inner world, and choosing compassion over urgency creates the...

What if the end of the year didn’t have to mean resolutions, pressure, or performative reflection?  In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores an approach to closing the year that welcomes your whole experience - grief, joy, exhaustion, resilience - and creates gentle space for renewal. Elizabeth shares her personal experience navigating the end of last year while her mother was nearing...

If the holidays feel heavy or unexpectedly emotional, you’re not alone.  In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores the tender landscape of holiday grief, including why it often feels heavier this time of year, and how we can support ourselves with gentleness and honesty. Through two powerful folktales from Japan and the Arctic Inuit tradition, she reflects on the universal experience of...

What if the wisdom you’re searching for is already moving beneath the surface, like a river under winter ice? In this episode, Elizabeth Mintun explores the water element and the season of winter according to ancient Chinese medicine. She explores how winter can be a time of gestation, why your body may crave more rest right now, and offers micro practices to slow down during this holiday season....

Horses don’t just sense our emotions - they help regulate them. And today, you’ll hear how. In this powerful and heartfelt episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Jackie Stevenson, a therapist, coach, and equine-guided practitioner whose work blends nature, nervous system wisdom, and the profound presence of horses. Together, they explore how stepping into the world of the herd invites us to...

If you’ve been spiraling, ruminating, or stuck in patterns you can’t explain, you’re not broken - you may be in a portal. This episode explores how to walk through it. In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with transformation coach Ruthie Lindsey. She shares her extraordinary story: surviving a devastating car accident, living seven years in bed with chronic pain after a surgical wire p...

How do you cultivate a heart wide enough to hold yourself, your loved ones, and the world with compassion? Elena Brower joins us to explore this and the power of letting go in her new book Hold Nothing . In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Elena Brower, mother, mentor, poet, artist, volunteer, bestselling author, and host of the Practice You Podcast . Elena has been guiding yoga...

We often talk about “finding balance”... but what if balance begins when we stop holding ourselves up and allow the ground to hold us? In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Mary Sinclair, a movement educator and somatic practitioner, to explore how our relationship with the ground shapes the way we move through life, both physically and emotionally. Mary shares how posture, alignme...

Your inner compass is ready to guide you… Are you listening? Many of us have buried our inner knowing under years of doubt, overthinking, and second-guessing. In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun talks about how to reconnect with that inner voice, cultivate self-trust, and act with alignment even when the mind is loud and life feels uncertain. Elizabeth shares a personal story of a time she face...

One moment in a 10th-grade classroom changed how Lyn showed up in the world. This episode offers the story of finding her way back to her voice. In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun talks with Lyn about her Unmuted Method, which helps people heal and feel safe to be seen. Lyn opens up about how she learned to regulate her sensitive nervous system, and the quiet courage it takes to let yourself t...

Welcome to a very special celebration of the second anniversary of the Calming Ground Podcast! This week, host Elizabeth Mintun is honoring this milestone with a mini-episode series called The Nature Within . This is a journey back to the essence of why this podcast began: ✨ Reconnecting with your inner calm 🌱 Reclaiming your presence 🌊 Cultivating resilience through practicing mindfulness and...

Welcome to a very special celebration of the second anniversary of the Calming Ground Podcast! This week, host Elizabeth Mintun is honoring this milestone with a mini-episode series called The Nature Within . This is a journey back to the essence of why this podcast began: ✨ Reconnecting with your inner calm 🌱 Reclaiming your presence 🌊 Cultivating resilience through practicing mindfulness and...

Welcome to a very special celebration of the second anniversary of the Calming Ground Podcast! This week, host Elizabeth Mintun is honoring this milestone with a mini-episode series called The Nature Within . This is a journey back to the essence of why this podcast began: ✨ Reconnecting with your inner calm 🌱 Reclaiming your presence 🌊 Cultivating resilience through practicing mindfulness and...

Welcome to a very special celebration of the second anniversary of the Calming Ground Podcast! This week, host Elizabeth Mintun is honoring this milestone with a mini-episode series called The Nature Within . This is a journey back to the essence of why this podcast began: ✨ Reconnecting with your inner calm 🌱 Reclaiming your presence 🌊 Cultivating resilience through practicing mindfulness and...

Welcome to a very special celebration of the second anniversary of the Calming Ground Podcast! This week, host Elizabeth Mintun is honoring this milestone with a mini-episode series called The Nature Within . This is a journey back to the essence of why this podcast began: ✨ Reconnecting with your inner calm 🌱 Reclaiming your presence 🌊 Cultivating resilience through practicing mindfulness and...

What if peace is something already within you, waiting beneath the surface?  In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun talks with psychotherapist and author Ashley Davis Bush, who wrote The Little Book of Inner Peace , The Art and Power of Acceptance , and others. They explore how to move beyond the endless “doing” of our culture and reconnect with the deeper wisdom of simply being. In particula...

Before the holidays sweep you into full calendars, family dynamics, and year-end deadlines, fall offers a rare chance to pause and reset. What if you could use this season to strengthen your resilience now, before the holiday bustle? In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun shares why stress isn’t the enemy (it’s a signal), how resilience really works, and why now - before the holiday hustle - is th...

What are you ready to let go of? Autumn is nature’s reminder to refine and simplify. In this episode, podcast host Elizabeth Mintun talks about how fall is a season of transition - a time when nature contracts, leaves fall, and we’re invited to distill what is truly essential. In Chinese medicine and Qigong, Fall corresponds with the Metal element, connected to clarity, refinement, and the wisdom...

What does it mean to hold space for ourselves, for others, and for the tender in-between times of life? In this conversation, host Elizabeth Mintun is joined by Heather Plett, author of The Art of Holding Space and Where Tenderness Lives . Heather shares her wisdom on navigating transitions with courage and compassion. She talks about how to live in liminal spaces - when one chapter ends but the n...

What if ambition isn’t the enemy of calm…but actually its partner? In this episode, we’ll explore how ambition, when guided by soul and supported by rest, can actually expand your creativity, purpose, and vitality. In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun shares a personal story from early in her career that led her to a turning point: learning to discern between ego-driven ambition (the striving th...

Some conversations touch something so deep within us, we know we’ll never quite be the same again. This was one of those conversations. In this powerful and poetic episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Mary Reynolds Thompson, an award-winning author, spiritual ecology pioneer, poetry therapy facilitator, and wild soul guide. Mary’s life and work invite us into a space of reconnection: to t...

What happens when burnout pushes you to the point of numbness?  In this episode, podcast host Elizabeth Mintun is joined by Rachel Pradarelli. Rachel is the founder of Tranquilopa Wellness and she is a yoga and meditation teacher, and women’s wellness coach. Rachel shares her journey from working as a family nurse practitioner (where stress and emotional overload led her to a breaking point),...